730 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 
SANTA    CRUZ 


PEACE 

IN  FRIENDSHIP 
VILLAGE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •   BOSTON  '   CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 


PEACE 

IN  FRIENDSHIP 
VILLAGE 


BY 

ZONA  GALE 

AUTHOR  OF  "FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE,"  "FRIENDSHIP 
VILLAGE  LOVE  STORIES,"  ETC. 


H3eto  gotfe 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1919 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1919 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  October,  1919. 


P5 

3^13 


P4 


"  Whatever  comes  of  it  after  this  [in  Russia]  every  one 
in  the  world  should  be  plainly  told  of  what  took  place  in 
those  first  weeks.  For  it  was  a  dazzling  revelation  of  the 
deep,  deep  powers  for  brotherhood  and  friendliness  that  lie 
buried  in  mankind.  I  was  no  dreamer;  I  was  a  chemist,  a 
scientist,  used  to  dealing  with  facts.  All  my  life  I  had 
smiled  at  social  dreams  as  nothing  but  Utopias.  But  in  those 
days  I  was  wholly  changed,  for  I  could  feel  beneath  my  feet 
this  brotherhood  like  solid  ground.  There  is  no  end  to  what 
men  can  do  —  for  there  is  no  limit  to  their  good  will,  if 
only  they  can  be  shown  the  way." 

TARASOV,  in  Ernest  Poole's  "  The  Village." 
"  I  am  the  way  .  .  ." 

JESUS  CHRIST. 


NOTE 

These  stories  are  told  in  the  words  of  Calliope 
Marsh.  Wherever  I  have  myself  intruded  a  word, 
it  is  with  apology  to  her.  I  chronicle  her  stories  as 
faithfully  as  I  am  able,  faults  and  all,  and,  through 
her,  the  affairs  of  the  village,  reflecting  in  its  small 
pool  the  people  and  the  stars. 

And  always  I  hear  most  clearly  as  her  conclusion : 

"  Life  is  something  other  than  that  which  we  be- 
lieve it  to  be." 

ZONA  GALE. 

Portage,  Wisconsin,  1919. 


vii 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS i 

II  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE      ....     20 

III  THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO 45 

IV  WHEN  NICK  NORDMAN  CAME  BACK  HOME  .     75 
V    BEING  GOOD  TO  LETTY 98 

VI     SOMETHING  PLUS 104 

VII  THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT  .     .     .130 

VIII    ROSE  PINK 154 

IX    PEACE 185 

X    DREAM 205 

XI    THE  BROTHER-MAN 232 

XII     THE  CABLE 256 

XIII  WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME     ....  273 

XIV  "FOLKS" 293 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP 
VILLAGE 

THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  * 

THREE-FOUR  of  us  older  ones  were  down  wind- 
ing up  Red  Cross,  and  eight-ten  of  our  daughters  were 
helping;  not  my  daughter  —  I  ain't  connect' — but 
Friendship  Village  daughters  in  general.  Or  I  don't 
know  but  it  was  us  older  ones  that  were  helping 
them.  Anyway,  Red  Cross  was  being  wound  up 
from  being  active,  and  the  rooms  were  going  to  be 
rented  to  a  sewing-machine  man.  And  that  night 
we  were  to  have  our  final  entertainment  in  the 
Friendship  Village  Opera  House,  and  we  were  all 
going  to  be  in  it. 

There  was  a  sound  from  the  stairs  like  something 
walking  with  six  feet,  and  little  Achilles  Poulaki  came 
in.  He  always  stumbled  even  when  there  was  noth- 
ing in  sight  but  the  floor  —  he  was  that  age.  He  was 
the  Sykeses'  grocery  delivery  boy,  that  Mis'  Sykes 
thinks  is  her  social  secretary  as  well,  and  he'd  been 
errand  boy  for  us  all  day. 

i  Copyright,  Red  Cross  Magazine,  April,  1919. 


2  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Anything  else,  Mis'  Sykes?  "  he  says. 

"  I  wonder,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  if  Killy  can't  take 
that  basket  of  cotton  pieces  down  to  old  Mis'  Her- 
man, for  her  woolen  rugs?  " 

We  all  thought  he  could,  and  some  of  the  girls 
went  to  work  to  find  the  basket  for  him. 

"  Killy,"  I  says,  "  I  hear  you  can  speak  a  nice 
Greek  piece." 

He  didn't  say  anything.  He  hardly  ever  did  say 
anything. 

"  Can  you?  "  I  pressed  him,  because  somebody  had 
been  telling  me  that  he  could  speak  a  piece  his  Greek 
grandfather  had  taught  him. 

"  Yes'm,"  he  says. 

"Will  you?  "I  took  it  further. 

"  No'm,"  he  says,  in  exactly  the  same  tone. 

"  You  ought  to  speak  it  for  me,"  I  said.  "  I'm 
going  to  be  Greece  in  the  show  to-night." 

But  they  brought  the  basket  then,  and  he  went  off 
with  it.  He  was  a  little  thin-legged  chap  —  such 
awful  thin  legs  he  had,  and  a  pale  neck,  and  cropped 
hair,  and  high  eyebrows  and  big,  chapped  hands. 

"  Don't  you  drop  it,  now!  "  says  Mis'  Sykes,  that 
always  uses  a  club  when  a  sliver  would  do  it. 

Achilles  straightened  up  his  thin  little  shoulders 
and  threw  out  his  thin  little  chest,  and  says  he : 

"  My  grandfather  was  in  the  gover'ment." 

"  Go  on!  "  says  Mis'  Sykes.     "  In  Greece?  " 

"  Sure,"    he    says  —  which    wasn't    Greek    talk, 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  3 

though  I  bet  Greek  boys  have  got  something  like 
it. 

Then  Achilles  was  scared  to  think  he'd  spoke,  and 
he  run  off,  still  stumbling.  His  father  had  been 
killed  in  a  strike  in  the  Friendship  mills,  and  his 
mother  was  sick  and  tried  to  sew  some;  and  she 
hadn't  nothing  left  that  wasn't  married,  only  Achilles. 

The  work  went  on  among  us  as  before,  only  I  al- 
ways waste  a  lot  of  time  watching  the  girls  work. 
I  love  to  see  girls  working  together  —  they  seem  to 
touch  at  things  with  the  tips  of  their  fingers.  They 
remind  me  of  butterflies  washing  out  their  own  wings. 
And  yet  what  a  lot  they  could  get  done,  and  how 
capable  they  got  to  be.  Ina  Clare  and  Irene  Ayres 
and  Ruth  Holcomb  and  some  more  —  they  were 
packing  up  and  making  a  regular  lark  of  it.  Seemed 
like  they  were  so  big  and  strong  and  young  they 
could  do  'most  anything.  Seemed  like  it  was  a  shame 
to  close  down  Red  Cross  and  send  them  back  to  their 
separate  church  choirs  and  such,  to  operate  in,  ex- 
clusive. 

That  was  what  I  was  thinking  when  Mis'  Silas 
Sykes  broke  in  —  her  that's  the  leading  woman  of  the 
Friendship  Village  caste  of  folks. 

"  I  don't  know,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  I  don't  know 
but  pride  is  wicked.  But  I  cannot  help  feeling  pride 
that  I've  lived  in  Friendship  Village  for  three  gen- 
erations of  us,  unbroken.  And  for  three  generations 
back  of  that  we  were  American,  on  American  soil, 


4  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

under  the  American  flag  —  as  soon  as  ever  it  got 
here." 

"  Was  you  ?  "  I  says.  "  Well,  a  strain  of  me  is 
English,  and  a  touch  of  me  way  back  was  Scotch- 
Irish;  and  I've  got  a  little  Welsh.  And  I'd  like 
to  find  some  Indian,  but  I  haven't  ever  done  it. 
And  I'm  proud  of  all  them,  Mis'  Sykes." 

Mis'  Hubbelthwait  spoke  up  —  her  that's  never 
been  able  to  get  a  plate  really  to  fit  her,  and  when 
she  talks  it  bothers  out  loud. 

"  I  got  some  of  nearly  all  the  Allies  in  me,"  she 
says,  complacent. 

"  What?  "  says  Mis'  Sykes. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  says  Mis'  Hubbelthwait.  "  I  was 
counting  up,  and  there  ain't  hardly  any  of  'em  I 
ain't." 

"  Japanese  ?  "  says  Mis'  Sykes,  withering.  "  How 
interesting,  Mis'  Hubbelthwait,"  says  she. 

"  Oh,  I  mean  Europe,"  says  Mis'  Hubbelthwait, 
cross.  "  Of  course  you  can't  descend  from  differ- 
ent continents.  There's  English  —  I've  got  that. 
And  French  —  I've  got  that.  And  I-talian  is  in  me 
—  I  know  that  by  my  eyes.  And  folks  that  come 
from  County  Galway  has  Spanish  — " 

"  Spain  ain't  ally,"  says  Mis'  Fire  Chief  Merri- 
man,  majestic.  "  It's  neuter." 

"  Well,  there's  that  much  more  credit  —  to  be 
allies  and  neuter,"  says  Mis'  Hubbelthwait  trium- 
phant. 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  5 

"  Well,  sir,"  says  Mis'  Holcomb-that-was-Mame 
Bliss.  "  I  ain't  got  anything  in  me  but  sheer  Ameri- 
can —  you  can't  beat  that." 

u  How'd  you  manage  that,  Mame?"  I  ask  her. 
"  Kind  of  a  trick,  wasn't  it?  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  she  says.  And 
went  right  on  over  my  head,  like  she  does.  "  Ain't 
it  nice,  ladies,"  she  says,  "  to  be  living  in  the  very 
tip-top  nation  of  this  world?  " 

"  Except  of  course  England,"  says  Mis'  Jimmy 
Sturgis. 

"  Why  except  England?  "  snaps  Mame  Holcomb. 

"  Oh  well,  we  all  know  England's  the  grandest 
nation,"  says  Mis'  Sturgis.  "  Don't  the  sun  never 
set  on  her  possessions?  Don't  she  rule  the  wave? 
Ain't  she  got  the  largest  city?  And  all  like  that?  " 

Mame  looked  mad. 

"  Well,  I'm  sure  I  don't  know,"  she  says.  "  But 
from  the  time  I  studied  g'ography  I  always  under- 
stood that  no  nation  could  touch  us  Americans." 

"  Why,"  says  Mis'  Sturgis,  "  I  love  America  best. 
But  I  never  had  any  doubts  that  England  that 
my  folks  came  from  was  the  most  important 
country." 

Mis'  Holcomb  made  her  mouth  both  tight  and 
firm. 

'  Their  gover'ment  beats  ours,  I  s'pose?"  she 
says.  '  You  know  very  well  you  can't  beat  our  gov- 
er'ment." 


6  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Berta,  Mis'  Sykes's  little  Switzerland  maid,  spoke 
up. 

"  Oh,"  she  says,  "  I  guess  Sweetzerland  has  got 
the  nicest  government.  Everybody  speaks  so  nice  of 
that." 

Mame  looked  over  at  me,  behind  Berta.  But  of 
course  we  wouldn't  say  a  word  to  hurt  the  poor  little 
thing's  feelings. 

Up  spoke  that  new  Mis'  Antonio,  whose  husband 
has  the  fluff  rug  store. 

"  Of  course,"  she  says,  "  nothing  has  Rome  but 
Italy." 

We  kep'  still  for  a  minute.  Nobody  could  contra- 
dict that. 

"  I  feel  bad,"  said  Mis'  Antonio,  "  for  the  new 
countries  —  America,  England  —  that  have  not  so 
much  old  history  in  them.  And  no  old  sceneries." 

Berta  spoke  up  again.  "  Yes,  but  then  who's  got 
part  of  the  Alps?"  she  wanted  to  know,  kind  of 
self-conscious. 

Mame  Holcomb  looked  around,  sort  of  puzzled. 

"  Rome  used  to  be  nice,"  she  admitted,  "  and  of 
course  the  Alps  is  high.  But  everybody  knows  they 
can't  hold  a  candle  to  the  United  States,  all  in  all." 

After  that  we  worked  on  without  saying  anything. 
It  seemed  like  pretty  near  everything  had  been  said. 

Pretty  soon  the  girls  had  their  part  all  done. 
And  they  stood  up,  looking  like  rainbows  in  their 
pretty  furs  and  flowers. 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  7 

"  Miss  Calliope,"  Ina  Clare  said  to  me,  "  come 
on  with  us  to  get  some  things  for  to-night." 

"  Go  with  you  and  get  put  of  doing  any  more 
work?  "  says  I,  joyful.  "  Well,  won't  I !  " 

"  But  we  are  working,"  cried  Ruth.  "  We've  got 
oceans  of  things  to  collect." 

"  Well,"  says  I,  "  come  along.  Sometimes  I  can't 
tell  work  from  play  and  this  is  one  of  the  times." 

I  thought  that  more  than  once  while  I  went  round 
with  them  in  Ruth's  big  car  late  that  afternoon. 
How  do  you  tell  work  from  play  when  both  are  the 
right  kind?  How  do  we  know  that  some  day  play 
won't  be  only  just  the  happiest  kind  of  work,  done 
joyful  and  together? 

"  I  guess  you're  going  to  miss  this  kind  of  work 
when  Red  Cross  stops,"  I  said  to  them. 

Ruth  is  tall  and  powerful  and  sure,  and  she  drives 
as  if  it  was  only  one  of  the  things  she  knows  about. 

"  Miss  it  ?  "  she  said.  "  We'll  be  lost  —  simply. 
What  we're  going  to  do  I  don't  know." 

'  We've  been  some  use  in  the  world,"  said  Clare, 
"  and  now  we've  got  to  go  back  to  being  nothing 
but  happy." 

'  We'll  have  to  play  bridge  five  nights  a  week  to 
keep  from  being  bored  to  tears,"  says  Irene  —  that 
is  pretty  but  she  thinks  with  her  scalp  and  no  more. 

Ruth,  that's  the  prettiest  of  them  all,  she  shook  her 
head. 

"We   can't  go   back  to   that,"   she   said.     "At 


8  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

least,  I  won't  go  back  to  that.  But  what  I'm  going 
on  to  do  I  don't  know." 

What  were  they  going  on  to  do  ?  That  was  what 
I  kept  wondering  all  the  while  we  gathered  up  the 
finishing  touches  of  what  we  wanted  for  the  stage 
that  night. 

"  Now  the  Greek  flag,"  said  Ruth  finally.  "  Mis' 
Sykes  said  we  could  get  that  at  Mis'  Poulaki's." 

That  was  Achilles'  mother,  and  none  of  us  had 
ever  met  her.  We  went  in,  real  interested.  And 
there  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  sat  Mis'  Poulaki 
looking  over  the  basket  of  cotton  rags  that  the  Red 
Cross  had  sent  down  by  Achilles  to  old  Mis'  Her- 
man. 

"  Oh,"  says  little  Mis'  Poulaki,  "  you  sent  me  such 
grand  clothes  for  my  rags.  Thank  you  —  thank 
you !  " 

She  had  tears  in  her  eyes,  and  there  wasn't  one  of 
us  Would  tell  her  Achilles  had  just  plain  stole  them 
for  her. 

"  It  is  everything,"  she  said  to  us  in  her  broken 
talk.  "  Achilles,  he  had  each  week  two  dollar  from 
Mr.  Sykes.  But  it  is  not  enough.  I  have  hard  time. 
Hard." 

Over  the  lamp  shelf  I  saw,  just  then,  the  picture  of 
a  big,  handsome  man ;  and  out  of  being  kind  of  em- 
barrassed, I  asked  who  he  was. 

"  Oh,"  says  Mis'  Poulaki,  "  he's  Achilles'  grand- 
father —  the  father  of  my  boy's  father.  He  was 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  9 

officer  of  the  Greek  gover'ment,"  she  added,  proud. 
"  He  taught  my  boy  a  piece  to  speak  —  something 
all  the  Greek  boys  learn." 

I  told  her  I'd  heard  about  that  piece;  and  then  we 
asked  for  the  Greek  flag,  and  Mis'  Poulaki  got  it 
for  us,  but  she  said: 

"  Would  you  leave  Achilles  carry  it  for  you?  He 
like  that." 

We  said  "  yes,"  and  got  out  as  soon  as  possible  — 
it  seemed  so  sad,  love  of  a  country  and  stealing  all 
mixed  up  promiscuous  in  one  little  boy. 

Out  by  the  car  there  was  a  whole  band  of  little 
folks  hanging  round  examining  it.  They  were  all 
going  to  be  in  the  drill  at  the  entertainment  that 
night,  and  they  all  came  running  to  Ruth  that  had 
trained  them. 

"  Listen,"  she  said  to  us,  and  then  she  held  up 
her  hand  to  them.  "  All  say  '  God  bless  you  '  in 
your  own  language." 

They  shouted  it  —  a  Bedlam,  a  Babylon.  It 
seems  there  were  about  fourteen  different  nations 
of  them,  more  or  less,  living  around  down  there  — 
it  wasn't  a  neighborhood  we'd  known  much  about. 
They  were  cute  little  bits,  all  of  them;  and  I  felt 
better  about  taking  part  in  the  performance,  at  my 
age,  for  the  children  were  so  cute  nobody  would 
need  to  look  at  us. 

Just  as  we  got  in  the  car,  Achilles  Poulaki  came 
running  home  to  his  supper  —  one  of  the  kind  of 


io          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

suppers,  I  suppose,  that  would  be  all  right,  what 
there  was  of  it;  and  enough  of  it,  such  as  it  was. 
When  he  see  us,  his  eyes  got  wide  and  dark  and 
scared  —  it  was  terrible  to  see  that  look  in  that  little 
boy's  face,  that  had  stole  to  help  his  mother.  We 
told  him  about  the  Greek  flag,  and  his  face  lit,  and 
he  said  he'd  bring  it.  But  he  stood  there  staring 
at  us,  when  we  drove  away. 

His  look  was  haunting  me  still  when  I  went  into 
the  Friendship  Village  Opera  House  that  night  for 
the  Red  Cross  final  entertainment.  "  The  Feast  of 
Nations,"  it  was  going  to  be,  and  us  ladies  had 
worked  at  it  hard  and  long,  and  using  recipes  we 
were  not  accustomed  to  using. 

There's  many  different  kinds  of  excitement  in  this 
vale  of  tears,  but  for  the  sheer,  top-notch  variety 
give  me  the  last  few  minutes  before  the  curtain  goes 
up  on  a  home-talent  entertainment  in  a  little  town. 
All  the  different  kinds  of  anxiety,  apprehension  and 
amateur  agony  are  there  together,  and  gasping  for 
utterance. 

For  instance,  Mis'  Fire  Chief  Merriman  was 
booked  to  represent  a  Jugo-Slav.  None  of  us  ladies 
knew  how  it  ought  to  be  done,  so  we  had  fixed  up 
kind  of  a  neutral  costume  of  red,  white  and  blue  that 
couldn't  be  so  very  far  out  of  the  way.  But  the  last 
minute  Mis'  Merriman  got  nervous  for  fear  there'd 
be  a  Jugo-Slav  in  the  audience,  and  she  balked  out 
on  going  on,  and  it  took  all  we  could  do  to  persuade 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  n 

her.  And  then  the  Balkans  got  nervous  —  we 
weren't  any  of  us  real  clear  about  the  Balkans.  And 
we  didn't  know  whether  the  Dolomites  was  states 
or  mountains,  so  we  left  them  out  altogether.  But 
we'd  been  bound  the  little  nations  were  going  to  be 
represented  whether  anybody  else  was  or  not  —  and 
there  we  were,  nations  of  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  Aus- 
tralia, the  Americas  and  the  provinces,  and  some- 
body for  every  one  of  them.  And  for  a  curtain 
we'd  sewed  all  the  flags  of  every  nation  together 
because  we  were  so  sick  and  tired  of  the  advertise- 
ments and  the  pink  lady  on  the  old  Opera  House 
curtain. 

It's  no  part  of  my  purpose,  as  the  orators  say,  to 
tell  about  the  Friendship  Village  "  Feast  of  Nations  " 
entire.  It  would  take  sheets.  To  mention  the  mere 
mistakes  and  misadventures  of  that  evening  would 
be  Arabian  Nights  long.  Us  ladies  were  the  na- 
tions, and  the  young  girls  were  the  spirits  —  Liberty, 
Democracy,  To-morrow,  Humanity,  Raw  Materials, 
Trade  Routes,  the  High  Seas,  Disputed  Territory, 
Commerce,  Peace,  and  like  that.  There  ought  to 
have  been  one  more,  and  she  did  come  all  dressed 
up  and  ready,  in  white  with  gold  and  silver  on  her; 
and  then  she  sat  flat  down  on  a  scaffold,  and  she  says : 

"  I  can  not  do  it.  I  can  not  pronounce  me.  I 
shall  get,"  she  says  wild,  u  nothing  said  out  loud  but 
a  whisper.  And  what  is  the  use?  " 

We   gathered    round   her,    and   we    understood. 


12          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

None  of  us  could  pronounce  her  easy,  especially 
when  scared.  She  was  Reciprocity. 

"  Make  a  sign,"  says  somebody,  "  make  a  sign 
with  her  name  on  it,  and  hold  it  over  her  head." 

But  that  was  no  better,  because  nobody  could  spell 
her,  either,  including  her  herself.  So  we  give  it  up, 
and  she  went  down  in  the  audience  and  looked  on. 

"It's  all  right,"  says  Mis'  Sykes.  "Nobody 
knows  what  it  means,  anyway." 

"  No,"  says  I,  "  but  think  of  the  work  her  moth- 
er's put  on  her  dress." 

And  we  all  knew  what  that  meant,  anyway;  and 
we  all  felt  bad,  and  thought  mebbe  the  word  would 
be  more  in  use  by  the  next  show  we  give,  if  any. 

About  in  the  middle  of  the  program,  just  after 
Commerce  and  Raw  Materials  and  Disputed  Terri- 
tory tried  to  raise  a  row,  and  had  got  held  in  place  by 
Humanity,  Mis'  Sykes  came  to  me  behind  the  scenes. 
She  was  Columbia,  of  course,  and  she  was  dressed  in 
the  United  States  flag,  and  she  carried  an  armful  of 
all  the  other  flags.  We  had  had  all  we  could  do  to 
keep  her  from  wearing  a  crown  —  she'd  been  bound 
and  determined  to  wear  a  crown,  though  we  explained 
to  her  that  crowns  was  going  out  of  fashion  and  get- 
ting to  be  very  little  worn. 

"  But  they're  so  regal!  "  she  kept  saying,  grieving. 

"  Crowns  are  all  right,"  we  had  agreed  with  her. 
u  It's  the  regal  part  that  we  object  to.  Not  on 
Columbia  you  don't  put  no  crown!  " 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  13 

And  we  made  her  wear  a  wreath  of  stars.  But 
the  wreath  was  near  over  one  eye  when  she  came  to 
me  there,  between  the  acts. 

"  Killy  Poulaki,"  she  says,  "  he  stole  that  whole 
basket  of  stuff  we  sent  down  to  old  Mis'  Herman  by 
him.  Mis'  Herman  found  it  out." 

"  For  his  ma,  though,"  I  says  pitiful. 

"  Ma  or  no  ma,  stole  is  stole,"  says  Mis'  Sykes. 
'  We're  going  to  make  an  example  of  him." 

And  I  thought :  "  First  we  starve  Achilles  on  two 
dollars  a  week,  and  then  when  he  steals  for  his  ma, 
we  make  an  example  of  him.  Ain't  there  anything 
else  for  him.  .  .  ." 

There  wasn't  time  to  figure  it  out,  because  the  flag 
curtain  was  parting  for  the  children  —  the  children 
that  came  capering  up  to  do  their  drill,  all  proud 
and  pleased  and  important.  They  didn't  represent 
anything  only  themselves  —  the  children  of  all  the 
world.  And  Ruth  Holcomb  stood  up  to  drill  them, 
and  she  was  the  Spirit  of  To-morrow. 

The  curtains  had  parted  on  the  empty  stage,  and 
To-morrow  had  stepped  out  alone  and  given  a  short, 
sharp  word.  And  all  over  the  house,  where  they 
were  sitting  with  their  families,  they  hopped  up,  boys 
and  girls,  and  flashed  into  the  aisles.  And  the  or- 
chestra started  them,  and  they  began  to  sing  and 
march  to  the  stage,  and  went  through  what  Ruth  had 
taught  them. 

Nothing  military.     Nothing  with  swords  or  any- 


i4          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

thing  of  that.  But  instead,  a  little  singing  dance  as 
they  came  up  to  meet  To-morrow.  And  she  gave 
them  a  star,  a  bird,  a  little  pretend  animal,  a  flower, 
a  lyre,  a  green  branch,  a  seed,  and  she  told  them  to 
go  out  and  make  the  world  more  beautiful  and  glad. 
They  were  willing !  That  was  something  they  knew 
about  already.  They  lined  up  at  the  footlights  and 
held  out  their  gifts  to  the  audience.  And  it  made 
it  by  far  the  more  wonderful  that  we  knew  the  chil- 
dren had  really  come  from  so  many  different  na- 
tions, every  one  with  its  good  gift  to  give  to  the 
world. 

You  know  how  they  looked  —  how  all  children 
look  when  you  give  them  something  like  that  to  do. 
Dear  and  small  and  themselves,  so  that  you  swallow 
your  whole  throat  while  you  watch.  Because  they 
are  To-morrow,  and  they  want  life  to  be  nice,  and 
they  think  it's  going  to  be  —  but  we  haven't  got  it 
fixed  up  quite  right  for  them  yet.  We're  late. 

As  they  stood  there,  young  and  fine  and  ready, 
Ruth,  that  was  To-morrow,  said: 

"Now!" 

They  began  speaking  together,  clear  and  strong 
and  sweet.  My  heart  did  more  things  to  my  throat 
while  I  looked  at  them. 

"  I  pledge  allegiance  to  my  flag  and  to  the  Re- 
public for  which  it  stands,  one  nation,  indivisible, 
with  liberty  and  justice  for  all." 

Somebody  punched  at  me,  violent. 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  15 

"Ain't  it  magnificent  to  hear  'em  say  it?"  says 
Mis'  Sykes.  "  Ain't  it  truly  magnificent?  " 

But  I  was  looking  at  Achilles  and  thinking  of  her 
being  willing  to  make  an  example  of  him  instead 
of  helping  him,  and  thinking,  too,  of  his  two  dollars 
a  week. 

"  It  is  if  it  is,"  says  I,  cryptic. 

To-morrow  was  speaking  again. 

'*  Those  of  you  whose  fathers  come  from  Europe, 
hold  up  your  hands." 

Up  shot  maybe  twenty  hands  —  scraggy  and 
plump,  and  Achilles'  little  thin  arm  in  the  first  row 
among  them. 

And  at  the  same  minute,  out  came  us  ladies, 
marching  from  the  wings  —  all  those  of  us  that  rep- 
resented the  different  countries  of  the  world;  and 
we  formed  back  of  the  children,  and  the  stage  was  full 
of  the  nations  of  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  Australia, 
the  Americas,  the  islands  and  all. 

And  To-morrow  asked: 

"  What  is  it  that  your  fathers  have  sworn  to,  so 
that  you  now  all  belong  to  one  nation?  " 

Then  we  all  said  it  with  the  children  —  waveringly 
at  first,  swelling,  mounting  to  full  chorus,  the  little 
bodies  of  the  children  waving  from  side  to  side  as 
we  all  recited  it : 

"  I  absolutely  and  entirely  renounce  and  adjure  all 
allegiance  and  fidelity  to  any  foreign  prince,  poten- 
tate, state  or  sovereignty,  and  particularly  to  — " 


1 6          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Here  was  a  blur  of  sound  as  all  the  children 
named  the  ruler  of  the  state  from  which  their  fathers 
had  come. 

" —  of  whom  I  have  heretofore  been  subject  .  .  . 
that  I  will  support  and  defend  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States  against  all  enemies,  foreign  or 
domestic,  and  bear  true  faith  and  allegiance  to  the 
same,  so  help  me  God.  .  .  ." 

Before  they  had  finished,  I  began  to  notice  some- 
thing. I  stood  on  the  end,  and  Achilles  was  just 
near  me.  He  had  looked  up  and  smiled  at  me,  and 
at  his  Greek  flag  that  I  was  carrying.  But  now, 
while  the  children  recited  together,  Achilles  stood 
there  with  them  saying  not  one  word.  And  then, 
when  the  names  of  the  rulers  all  blurred  together, 
Achilles  scared  me,  for  he  put  up  the  back  of  his 
hand  as  if  to  rub  tears  from  his  eyes.  And  when 
they  all  stopped  speaking,  only  his  sobbing  broke  the 
stillness  of  the  hall. 

I  don't  know  how  it  came  to  me,  save  that  things 
do  come  in  shafts  of  light  and  splendor  that  no  one 
can  name ;  but  in  that  second  I  knew  what  ailed  him. 
Maybe  I  knew  because  I  remembered  the  picture  of 
his  grandfather  on  the  wall  over  the  lamp  shelf. 
Anyway,  the  big  pang  came  to  me  to  speak  out,  like 
it  does  sometimes,  when  you  have  to  say  what's  in 
you  or  die. 

"  To-morrow!  "  I  cried  out  to  Ruth,  and  I  was 
glad  she  had  her  back  to  the  audience  so  they  couldn't 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  17 

see  how  scared  she  looked  at  me  speaking  what  wasn't 
in  my  part.  "  To-morrow!  I  am  Greece  1  I  ask 
that  this  little  Greek  boy  here  say  the  words  that  his 
Greek  grandfather  taught  him !  " 

Ruth.looked  at  Achilles  and  nodded,  and  I  saw  his 
face  brighten  all  of  a  sudden  through  his  tears;  and 
I  knew  he  was  going  to  speak  it,  right  out  of  his 
heart. 

Achilles  began  to  speak,  indistinct  at  first,  then 
getting  clearer,  and  at  last  his  voice  went  over  the 
hall  loud  and  strong  and  like  he  meant  it : 

"  *  We  will  never  bring  disgrace  to  this  our  city 
by  any  act  of  dishonor  or  cowardice,  nor  ever  desert 
our  suffering  comrades  in  the  ranks.  We  will  revere 
and  obey  the  city's  laws,  and  do  our  best  to  incite  a 
like  respect  and  reverence  in  those  above  us  who 
are  prone  to  annul  them  or  set  them  at  naught.  We 
will  strive  unceasingly  to  quicken  the  public  sense  of 
civic  duty.  Thus  in  all  these  ways,  we  will  trans- 
mit this  city  not  less  but  greater,  better,  and  more 
beautiful  than  it  was  transmitted  to  us.'  ' 

It  was  the  Athenian  boy's  creed  of  citizenship, 
that  Achilles'  father  had  learned  in  Greece,  and 
that  Achilles'  grandfather,  that  officer  in  the  Greek 
government,  had  taught  to  them  both. 

The  whole  hall  cheered  him  —  how  could  they 
help  that?  And  right  out  of  the  fullness  of  the 
lump  in  my  throat,  I  spoke  out  again.  And  I 
says: 


i8          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  To-morrow!  To-morrow!  You're  going  to 
give  us  a  world,  please  God,  where  we  can  be  true 
to  our  own  nation  and  true  to  all  others,  for  we  shall 
all  belong  to  the  League  of  the  World." 

Oh,  and  they  cheered  that !  They  knew  —  they 
knew.  Just  like  every  hamlet  and  cross-roads  in  this 
country  and  in  this  world  is  getting  to  know  —  that 
a  great  new  idea  is  waiting,  for  us  to  catch  the  throb 
of  its  new  life.  To-morrow,  the  League  of  the 
World  is  going  to  teach  us  how  to  be  alive.  If  only 
we  can  make  it  the  League  of  the  World  indeed. 

Right  then  came  beating  out  the  first  chords  of 
the  piece  we  were  to  close  with.  And  as  it  was 
playing  they  brought  out  the  great  world  flag  that 
us  ladies  had  made  from  the  design  that  we  had 
thought  up  and  made  ourselves:  A  white  world 
and  white  stars  on  a  blue  field. 

It  floated  over  the  heads  of  all  of  us  that  were 
dressed  as  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  not  one  of 
us  ladies  was  trying  to  tell  which  was  the  best  one, 
like  we  had  that  afternoon;  and  that  flag  floated  over 
the  children,  and  over  To-morrow  and  Democracy 
and  Liberty  and  Humanity  and  Peace  and  like  that. 
And  then  we  sang,  and  the  hall  sang  with  us: 

"  The   crest   and    crowning   of    all   good, 
Life's  common  goal  is  brotherhood." 

And  when  the  curtains  swept  together  —  the  cur- 
tains made  of  everybody's  flags  —  I  tell  you,  it  left 


THE  FEAST  OF  NATIONS  19 

us  all  feeling  like  we  ain't   felt  in  I   don't  know 
when. 

Within  about  a  minute  afterward  Ruth  and  Ina 
and  Irene  were  around  me. 

"  Miss  Calliope,"  they  said,  "  the  Red  Cross  isn't 
going  to  stop." 

"No?"  I  said. 

'  We're  going  to  start  in  with  these  foreign-born 
boys  and  girls  — "  Ina  said. 

u  We're  going  to  teach  them  all  the  things  To- 
morrow was  pretending  to  teach  them,"  Ruth  said. 

"  And  we're  going  to  learn  a  thing  or  two  they 
can  teach  us,"  I  says,  "  beginning  with  Achilles." 

They  knew  what  I  meant,  and  they  nodded. 

And  the  flag  of  the  white  world  and  white  stars 
on  a  blue  field  was  all  ready-made  to  lead  us  —  a 
kind  of  picture  of  God's  universe. 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE  * 

POST-OFFICE  HALL,  where  the  Peace  celebration 
was  to  be  held,  was  filled  with  flags,  both  bought  and 
borrowed,  and  some  made  up  by  us  ladies,  part 
guessed  at  but  most  of  them  real  accurate  out  of  the 
back  of  the  dictionary. 

Two  days  before  the  celebration  us  ladies  were 
all  down  working  in  the  hall,  and  all  pretty  tired,  so 
that  we  were  liable  to  take  exception,  and  object,  and 
I  don't  know  but  what  you  might  say  contradict. 

"  My  feet/'  says  Mis'  Toplady,  "  ache  like  the 
headache,  and  my  head  aches  as  if  I'd  stood  on  it." 

"  Do  they?  "  says  Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes,  with 
her  little  society  pucker.  "  Why,  I  feel  just  as  fresh. 
I've  got  a  wonderful  constitution." 

"  Oh,  anybody's  constitution  feels  fresh  if  they 
don't  work  it  too  hard,"  says  Mis'  Holcomb-that-was- 
Mame-Bliss,  having  been  down  to  the  Hall  all  day 
long,  as  Mis'  Sykes  hadn't. 

Then  Mis'  Toplady,  that  is  always  the  one  to  pour 
oil  and  balm  and  myrrh  and  milk  onto  any  troubled 

1  Copyright,  Good  Housekeeping,  June,  1919. 

20 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          21 

situation,  she  brought  out  her  question  more  to  re- 
duce down  the  minute  than  anything  else: 

"  Ladies,"  she  says,  holding  up  one  foot  to  rest 
the  aching  sole  of  it,  "  Ladies,  what  under  the  sun 
are  we  going  to  do  now  that  our  war  work's  done?  " 

"  What  indeed?"  says  Mis'  Holcomb-that-was- 
Mame-Bliss. 

"  What  indeed?"  says  I. 

"  True  for  you,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  that  always  has 
to  sound  different,  even  though  she  means  the  same. 

Of  course  we  were  all  going  to  do  what  we  could 
to  help  all  Europe,  but  saving  food  is  a  kind  of  neg- 
ative activity,  and  besides  us  ladies  had  always  done 
it.  Whereabouts  was  the  novelty  of  that? 

And  we'd  took  over  an  orphan  each  and  were 
going  to  skin  it  out  of  the  egg-money  and  such  — 
that  is,  not  the  orphan  but  its  keep  —  and  still  these 
actions  weren't  quite  what  we  meant,  either. 

"  The  mornings,"  says  Mis'  Toplady  dreamy, 
"  when  I  use'  to  wake  up  crazy  to  get  through  with 
my  work  and  get  with  you  ladies  to  sew  —  where's 
all  that  gone?  " 

"  The  meetings,"  says  Mame  Holcomb,  "  when 
Baptists  and  Catholics  and  young  folks  and  Elks 
met  promiscuous  and  sung  and  heard  talking  — 
where's  them?  " 

And  somebody  brought  out  the  thing  we'd  all 
thought  most  about. 

"  The  days,"  she  says,  "  when  we  worked  next 


22  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

to  our  old  enemies  —  both  church  and  family  ene- 
mies —  and  all  bad  feelings  forgot  —  where's  them 
times  ?" 

"  What  we  going  to  do  about  it?  "  I  says.  "  And 
when?" 

Mis'  Sykes  had  a  suggestion.  She  always  does 
have  a  suggestion,  being  she  loves  to  have  folks 
disciple  after  her.  "  Why,  ladies,"  she  says, 
"  there's  some  talking  more  military  preparedness 
right  off,  I  hear.  That  means  for  another  war. 
Why  not  us  start  in  and  knit  for  it  now?  "  And  she 
beamed  around  triumphant. 

"  Well,"  says  Mame  Holcomb,  reasonable,  "  if 
the  men  are  going  to  prepare  in  any  way,  it  does 
seem  like  women  had  ought  to  be  getting  ready  too. 
Why  not  knit?  And  have  a  big  box  all  setting 
ready,  all  knit  up,  to  match  the  other  prepared- 
nesses? " 

It  was  on  to  this  peaceful  assemblage  that  Lerta, 
Mis'  Sykes's  little  Switzerland  maid,  came  rushing. 
And  her  face  was  pale  and  white.  "  Oh,  Mis' 
Sykes,"  she  says,  "  oh,  what  jew  s'pose?  I  found  : 
little  boy  setting  on  the  front  stoop." 

Mis'  Sykes  is  always  calm  —  not  so  much  because 
calm  is  Christian  as  because  calm  is  grand  lady,  I 
always  think.  u  On  whose  stoop,  Berta?  "  she  ask' 
her  kind. 

"  On  your  own  stoop,  ma'am,"  cried  Berta  ex- 
citable. 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          23 

"And  whose  little  boy  is  it,  Berta?"  she  ask', 
still  more  calm  and  kind. 

"  That's  what  I  donno,  ma'am,"  says  Berta. 
"  Nor  they  don't  no  one  seem  to  know." 

We  all  ask'  her  then,  so  that  I  don't  know,  I'm 
sure,  how  she  managed  to  say  a  word  on  her  own 
hook.  It  seems  that  she'd  come  around  the  house 
and  see  him  setting  there,  still  as  a  mouse.  When 
he  see  her,  he  looked  up  and  smiled,  and  got  up  like 
he'd  been  waiting  for  somebody.  Berta  had  taken 
him  in  the  kitchen. 

"  And  he's  wearing  all  different  clothes  than  I 
ever  see  before  in  my  life,"  said  Berta,  "  and  he 
don't  know  who  he  is,  nor  nothing.  Nor  he  don't 
talk  right." 

Mis'  Sykes  got  up  in  her  grand,  deliberate  way. 
"  Undoubtedly  it's  wandered  away  from  its  ma," 
says  she,  and  goes  out  with  the  girl  that  was  still 
talkirfg  excitable  without  getting  a  great  deal  said. 

The  rest  of  us  finished  setting  the  hall  in  shape. 
It  looked  real  nice,  with  the  Friendship  Village  booth 
on  one  side  and  the  Foreign  booth  on  the  other.  Of 
course  the  Friendship  Village  booth  was  considerably 
the  biggest,  being  that  was  the  one  we  knew  the 
most  about. 

Then  us  ladies  started  home,  and  we  were  round- 
ing the  corner  by  Mis'  Sykes's,  when  we  met  her 
a-running  out. 

"  Ladies,"  she  says,  "  if  this  is  anybody's  child  that 


24          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

lives  in  Friendship  Village,  I  wish  you'd  tell  me 
whose.  Come  along  in." 

She  was  awful  excited,  and  I  don't  blame  her. 
Sitting  on  the  foot  of  the  lounge  in  her  dining-room 
was  the  funniest  little  dud  ever  I  see.  He  was  about 
four  years  old,  and  he  had  on  a  little  dress  that  was 
all  gold  braid,  and  animals,  and  pictures,  and  bis- 
cuits, and  shells,  looked  like.  But  his  face  was  like 
any  —  black  eyes  he  had,  and  a  nice  skin,  and  plain, 
brown  hair,  and  no  hat. 

"  For  the  land,"  we  all  says,  "  where  did  he  come 
from?" 

u  Now  listen  at  this,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  and  she 
squatted  down  in  front  of  him  that  was  eating  his 
cracker  so  pretty,  and  she  says,  "  What's  your 
name?" 

It  stumped  him.     He  only  stared. 

Mis'  Sykes  rolled  her  eyes,  and  she  pressed  him. 
"  Where  d'  you  live?" 

That  stumped  him  too.     He  only  stared  on. 

"  What's  your  papa's  name?  " 

That  was  a  worse  poser.  So  was  everything 
else  we  asked  him.  Pretty  soon  he  begun  to  cry, 
and  that  was  a  language  we  could  all  understand. 
But  when  we  ask'  him,  frantic,  what  it  was  he  wanted, 
he  said  words  that  sounded  like  soup  with  the  al- 
phabet stirred  in. 

"  Heavens!  "  says  Mis'  Sykes.  "  He  ain't  Eng- 
lish." 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          25 

And  that's  what  we  all  concluded.  He  wore 
what  we'd  never  seen,  he  spoke  what  we  couldn't 
speak,  he  come  from  nobody  knew  where. 

But  while  we  were  a-staring  at  each  other,  the 
Switzerland  maid  come  a-racing  back.  Seems  she'd 
been  up  to  the  depot,  a  block  away,  and  Copper,  the 
baggageman,  had  noticed  a  queer-looking  kid  on  the 
platform  when  some  folks  got  off  Number  16  that 
had  gone  through  west  an  hour  or  so  back.  Copper 
thought  the  kid  was  with  them,  but  he  didn't  notice 
it  special.  Where  the  folks  went  to,  nobody  knew. 

"  Down  on  the  Flats  somewhere,  that's  where  its 
folks  went,"  says  Mis'  Sykes.  "  Sure  to.  Well, 
then,  they'll  be  looking  for  it.  We  must  get  it  in 
the  papers." 

We  raced  around  and  advertised  that  little  boy  in 
the  Daily.  The  Friendship  Village  Evening  Daily 
goes  to  press  almost  any  time,  so  if  you  happen  to 
hit  it  right,  you  can  get  things  in  most  up  to  seven 
o'clock.  Quite  often  the  Evening  Daily  comes  after 
we're  all  in  bed,  and  we  get  up  and  read  it  to  go  to 
sleep  by.  We  told  the  sheriff,  and  he  come  up  that 
evening  and  clucked  at  the  little  boy,  without  getting 
a  word  out  of  him,  no  more  than  we  could.  The 
news  flew  round  town,  and  lots  of  folks  come  up  to 
see  him.  It  was  more  exciting  than  a  night-bloom- 
ing cereus  night. 

But  not  a  soul  come  to  claim  him.  He  might 
have  dropped  down  from  inside  the  air. 


26          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Well,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  if  some  of  them  for- 
eigners down  on  the  Flats  has  lost  him,  it'll  be  us 
that'll  have  to  find  him.  They  ain't  capable  of  noth- 
ing." 

That  was  how  Mis'  Sykes,  and  Mis'  Toplady,  and 
Mame  Holcomb  and  I  hitched  up  and  went  down  to 
the  Flats  and  took  the  baby  with  us,  right  after 
breakfast  next  morning,  to  try  our  best  to  locate 
him. 

The  Flats  are  where  the  Friendship  Village  ex- 
foreigners  live  —  ain't  it  scandalous  the  way  we 
keep  on  calling  ex-foreigners  foreigners  ?  And  then, 
of  course,  nobody's  so  very  foreign  after  you  get  ac- 
quainted. Americans,  even,  ain't  so  very  foreign 
to  Europeans  after  they  get  to  know  us,  they  say. 
I'd  been  down  there  often  enough  to  see  my  wash- 
woman, or  dicker  for  a  load  of  wood,  or  buy  new 
garden  truck,  or  get  somebody  to  houseclean,  but  I 
didn't  know  anybody  down  there  to  visit  — -  and  none 
of  us  ladies  did.  The  Flats  were  like  that.  The 
Flats  didn't  seem  ever  to  count  real  regular  in  real 
Friendship  Village  doings.  For  instance,  the  town 
was  just  getting  in  sewerage,  but  it  wasn't  to  go  in 
down  on  the  Flats,  and  nobody  seemed  surprised. 
The  only  share  the  Flats  seemed  to  have  in  sew- 
erage was  to  house  the  long,  red  line  of  bunk  cars, 
where  the  men  lived,  drawn  up  on  a  spur  of  track 
by  the  gas  house. 

It  was  a  heavenly  day,  warm  and  cool  and  bright, 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          27 

with  a  little  whiff  of  wind,  like  a  sachet  bag,  thrown 
in.  We  had  the  Sykeses'  surrey  and  old  white  horse, 
and  Mis'  Toplady  and  Mame  and  me  squoze  on  the 
back  seat  so's  to  let  Mis'  Sykes,  that  was  driving, 
have  sitting  beside  her  in  plain  sight  that  little  boy  in 
his  blazing  red  dress. 

We  went  first  to  see  some  folks  named  Amachi  — 
her  husband  was  up  in  the  pineries,  she  said,  and  so 
she  run  their  little  home-made  rug  business.  She 
was  a  wonderful,  motherly  soul,  and  she  poored  the 
little  boy  with  her  big,  thick  hand  and  listened,  with 
her  face  up  and  her  hair  low  in  her  neck  like  some 
kind  of  a  picture  with  big,  sad  eyes.  But  she  hadn't 
heard  of  anybody  lost. 

"  One  trouble  with  these  folks,"  Mis'  Sykes  says 
as  we  drove  away,  "  they  never  know  anything  but 
their  own  affairs." 

Then  we  went  to  some  folks  named  Cardell. 
They  tended  the  bridge  and  let  the  gypsies  camp 
in  their  pasture  whenever  they  wanted.  She  was 
cutting  the  grass  with  a  blunt  pair  of  shears;  and 
she  had  lots  of  flowers  and  vines  and  the  nicest  way 
of  talking  off  the  tip  of  her  tongue.  She  give  the 
little  boy  a  cup  of  warm  milk,  but  she  hadn't  heard 
anything  about  anybody  being  lost  anywheres. 

"  Real  superior  for  a  foreigner,"  says  Mis'  Sykes, 
so  quick  after  she'd  clucked  to  her  horse  I  was  afraid 
Mis'  Cardell  heard  her. 

Then  we  saw  an  old  lady  named  Marchant,  that 


28          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

her  ancestors  had  settled  up  Friendship  Village,  but 
she  was  so  poor  now  that  everybody  had  kind  of 
forgot  about  that,  and  some  folks  named  Swenson 
that  lived  in  the  toll-gate  house  and  had  a  regular 
hennery  of  homeless  cats.  And  though  they  give 
the  little  boy  a  flower  or  two  and  left  him  stroke  a 
kitty  or  more,  they  hadn't  any  of  them  either  seen 
or  heard  of  anybody  that  was  out  trying  to  locate  a 
son. 

It  was  just  a  little  while  after  we  started  that 
Mis'  Sykes  had  her  great  idea.  I  remember  we 
were  just  coming  out  at  Mis'  Swenson's  when  she 
thought  of  it,  and  all  the  homeless  cats  were  follow- 
ing along  behind  us  with  all  their  tails  sticking  up 
straight. 

"  Ladies,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  why  in  under  the 
canopy  don't  we  get  some  work  out  of  some  of  these 
folks  for  the  peace  meeting  to-morrow  night?  " 

"  I  was  thinking  of  that,"  says  Mame  Holcomb. 

"  Some  of  them  would  wash  the  dishes  and  not 
charge  anything,  being  it's  for  the  peace." 

"  And  help  clean  up  next  day,"  says  Mis'  Sykes. 
"  That's  when  the  backaching,  feet-burning  work 


comes  in." 


"  Costs  a  sight  to  pay  by  the  hour,"  says  Mame, 
"  and  this  way  we  could  get  the  whole  thing  free, 
for  patriotism." 

"  Mop  the  hall  floor,  too,"  says  Mis'  Sykes. 
u  Land,"  she  adds,  only  about  half  soft  enough, 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          29 

"look  at  them  children!  Did  you  ever  see  such 
skinny  sights?  " 

Awful  pindling-looking  children,  the  Swensons 
were,  and  there  were  most  as  many  of  them  as  there 
were  cats. 

When  she  got  to  the  gate,  Mis'  Sykes  turned  round 
in  her  grand-lady  way,  and  she  says,  "  Mis'  Swen- 
son,  why  don't  you  and  your  husband  come  up  to  the 
peace  meetin'  to-morrow  night  and  help  us?  " 

Mis'  Swenson  was  a  peaked  little  thing,  with  too 
much  throat  in  length  and  not  enough  in  thickness. 
"  I  never  heard  of  it,"  she  says. 

Mis'  Sykes  explained  in  her  commanding  way. 
"  Peace,  you  know,"  she  says,  "  is  to  be  celebrated 
between  the  different  countries.  And,  of  course,  this 
is  your  country,  too,"  Mis'  Sykes  assured  her,  "  and 
we'd  like  to  hev  you  come  up  and  help  with  the 
dishes,  or  like  that." 

"Is  it  dress-up?"  says  Mis'  Swenson,  not  very 
loud. 

"  My,  no!  "  we  told  her,  and  decided  to  stick  to 
the  usual  hooks  in  our  closets. 

"  I'd  like  to,"  says  Mis'  Swenson,  "  if  I  can  get 
Pete  to  change  his  clothes." 

"  So  do,"  says  Mis'  Sykes  gracious  and  clucked 
her  horse  along.  "  My  goodness,"  she  says,  "  what 
awful  stuff  these  folks  must  feed  their  children ! 
And  how  they  must  bungle  'em  when  they're  sick. 
And  they  won't  hardly  any  of  'em  come  to-morrow 


30          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

night,"  she  says.  "  You  can  not,"  she  says,  "  get 
these  folks  to  take  part  in  nothing." 

We  went  to  twenty  or  thirty  houses,  and  every 
one  of  them  Mis'  Sykes  invited  to  come  and  help. 
But  not  one  of  the  twenty  or  thirty  houses  had 
heard  of  any  foreigner  whatever  having  just  arrived 
in  Friendship  Village,  nor  had  ever  seen  or  heard 
of  that  little  boy  before.  He  was  awful  good,  the 
little  soul,  waving  his  hands  so  nice  that  I  begun 
to  be  afraid  everybody  we  met  would  claim  foreign 
and  ask  for  him. 

By  noon  we  begun  to  get  pretty  excited.  And  the 
sheriff,  he  was  excited  too,  and  he  was  hunting  just 
as  wild  as  any  of  us,  being  arrests  was  light.  He 
was  hanging  on  the  canal  bridge  when  we  crossed 
it,  going  home  along  toward  noon. 

"  They  never  had  a  case  of  lost  child  in  Friend- 
ship Village  in  twenty  years,"  he  said.  "  I  looked 
it  up." 

"  Lost  child  nothing!  "  I  told  him.  "  The  child 
ain't  lost.  Here  he  is.  It's  the  parents,"  I  said, 
"  that's  lost  on  us." 

The  noon  whistle  blew  just  then,  and  the  men 
that  were  working  on  the  sewer  threw  down  their 
shovels. 

"  Look  at  their  faces,"  says  Mis'  Sykes.  "  Did 
you  ever  see  anything  so  terrible  foreign?  " 

"  Foreign  ain't  poison,"  says  Mis'  Toplady  on  the 
back  seat. 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          31 

"  I'm  going  to  have  Silas  put  a  button  on  the 
cellar  window,"  says  Mis'  Sykes. 

"  Shucks,  they  ain't  shaved,  that's  all,"  says  Mis' 
Toplady. 

Mis'  Sykes  leaned  over  to  the  sheriff.  "  You 
better  be  up  around  the  peace  celebration  to-morrow 
night,"  she  says.  "  We've  been  giving  out  invita- 
tions pretty  miscellaneous,  and  we  might  need  you." 

"  I'll  drop  up,"  says  the  sheriff.  "  But  I  like  to 
watch  them  bunk  cars  pretty  close,  where  the  men 
live." 

"  Is  there  much  lawlessness?  "  Mis'  Sykes  asks, 
fearful. 

Mis'  Toplady  sings  out,  laughing,  that  there  would 
be  if  she  didn't  get  home  to  get  Timothy's  dinner, 
and  Mis'  Sykes  come  to  herself  and  groaned. 

"  But  oh,  my  land,"  she  says,  "  we  ain't  found  no 
ma  nor  pa  for  this  child.  What  in  time  are  we 
going  to  do?  I'm  too  stiff,"  she  says,  "  to  adopt 
one  personally." 

But  the  little  boy,  he  just  smelled  of  the  flowers 
the  folks  on  the  Flats  had  give  him,  and  waved  his 
hand  to  the  sheriff,  cute. 

Late  the  next  afternoon,  us  ladies  that  weren't 
tending  to  the  supper  were  trying  to  get  the  Foreign 
booth  to  look  like  something.  The  Foreign  booth 
looked  kind  of  slimpsey.  We  hadn't  got  enough  in 
it.  We  just  had  a  few  dishes  that  come  from  the 
old  country,  and  a  Swiss  dress  of  Berta's  mother's 


32          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

and  a  Japanese  dress,  and  like  that.  But  we  couldn't 
seem  to  connect  up  much  of  Europe  with  Friendship 
Village. 

At  five  o'clock  the  door  opened,  and  in  walked 
Mis'  Amachi  and  Mis'  Swenson  from  the  Flats,  with 
nice  black  dresses  on  and  big  aprons  pinned  up  in 
newspapers.  Pretty  soon  in  come  old  Mis'  Mar- 
chant,  that  had  rode  up  on  a  grocery  delivery  wagon, 
she  said.  Close  behind  these  come  some  more  of 
them  we  had  asked.  And  Mis'  Sykes,  acting  like 
the  personal  hostess  to  everything,  took  them  around 
and  showed  them  things,  the  Friendship  Village 
booth  that  was  loaded  with  stuff,  and  the  Foreign 
booth  that  wasn't. 

And  Mis'  Poulaki,  one  of  the  Greek  women,  she 
looked  for  a  while  and  then  she  says,  "  We  got  two 
nice  musics  from  old  country." 

She  made  her  hands  go  like  playing  strings,  and 
we  made  out  that  she  meant  two  musical  instru- 
ments. 

"Good  land!"  says  Mis'  Sykes.  "  Post  right 
straight  home  and  get  them.  Got  anything  else?  " 

"  A  little  boy's  suit  from  Norway,"  says  Mis' 
Swenson.  "  And  my  marriage  dress." 

"  Get  it  up  here!  "  cries  Mis'  Sykes.  u  Ladies, 
why  do  you  s'pose  we  never  thought  of  this  before?  " 

There  wasn't  hardly  one  of  them  that  couldn't 
think  of  something  —  a  dish,  or  a  candlestick,  or 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE  33 

wooden  shoes,  or  an  old  box,  or  a  kerchief.  Old 
Mis'  Marchant  had  come  wearing  a  shoulder  shawl 
that  come  from  Lombardy  years  back,  and  we  jerked 
it  off  her  and  hung  it  up,  hole  and  all. 

It  made  quite  some  fun  for  all  of  us.  And  all 
the  time  our  little  strange  boy  was  running  around 
the  floor,  playing  with  papers,  and  when  we  weren't 
talking  of  anything  else,  we  were  talking  about  him. 

"  Say,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  that  never  means  to  say 
"  say  "  but  gets  it  said  unbeknownst  when  excited, 
"  I  guess  he's  the  foreignest  thing  we've  got." 

But  by  six  o'clock  she  was  ready  to  take  that  back, 
about  him  being  the  foreignest.  The  women  from 
the  Flats  had  all  come  back,  bringing  all  they  had, 
and  by  the  time  we  put  it  up  the  Foreign  booth  looked 
like  Europe  personified.  And  that  wasn't  all.  Full 
three  quarters  of  the  folks  that  we'd  asked  from 
down  there  had  showed  up,  and  most  of  them  says 
they'd  got  their  husbands  to  come  too.  So  we  held 
off  the  supper  a  little  bit  for  them  —  a  fifteen-cent 
supper  it  was,  coffee  and  sandwiches  and  baked  beans 
and  doughnuts  —  and  it  was  funny,  when  you  think 
of  it,  for  us  to  be  waiting  for  them,  for  most  of  us 
had  never  spoken  to  any  of  these  folks  before.  The 
women  weren't  planning  to  eat,  they  said;  they'd 
help,  but  their  men  would  buy  the  fifteen-cent  sup- 
per, they  added,  proud.  Isn't  it  kind  of  sad  and  dear 
and  motherly,  the  way,  whenever  there  isn't  food 


34          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

enough,  it's  always  the  woman  who  manages  to  go 
without  and  not  let  on,  just  exactly  like  her  husband 
was  her  little  boy? 

By  and  by  in  they  all  come,  dressed  up  clean  but 
awful  heavy-handed  and  big-footed  and  kind  of 
wishing  they  hadn't  come.  But  I  liked  to  see  them 
with  our  little  lost  red  boy.  They  all  picked  him  up 
and  played  with  him  like  here  was  something  they 
knew  how  to  do. 

The  supper  was  to  come  first,  and  the  peace  part 
afterward,  in  some  set  speeches  by  the  town  ora- 
tors; and  we  were  just  ready  to  pour  out  the  coffee, 
I  recollect,  when  the  fire-bell  rang.  Us  ladies  didn't 
think  much  of  that.  Compared  with  getting  supper 
onto  the  table,  what  was  a  fire?  But  the  men  all 
jumped  up  excitable,  being  fires  are  more  in  their  line. 

Then  there  was  a  scramble  and  rush  and  push 
outside,  and  the  door  of  the  hall  was  shoved  open, 
and  there  stood  a  man  I'd  never  seen  before,  white 
and  shaking  and  shouting. 

"  The  bunk  cars!"  he  cried.  "They're  burn- 
ing. Come !  " 

The  bunk  cars  —  the  ten  or  twelve  cars  drawn 
up  on  a  spur  track  below  the  gas  house.  .  .  . 

All  of  us  ran  out  of  the  hall.  It  didn't  occur  to 
us  till  afterward  that  of  course  the  man  at  the 
door  was  calling  the  men  from  the  Flats,  some  of 
whom  worked  on  the  sewer  too.  I  don't  suppose  it 
would  ever  have  entered  his  head  to  come  up  to  call 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          35 

us  if  the  Flat  folks  hadn't  been  there.  And  it  was 
they  who  rushed  to  the  door  first,  and  then  the  rest 
of  us  followed. 

It  was  still  dusk,  with  a  smell  of  the  ground  in 
the  air.  And  a  little  new  moon  was  dropping  down 
to  bed.  It  didn't  seem  as  if  there  ought  to  be  a  fire 
on  such  a  night.  Everything  seemed  too  usual  and 
casual. 

But  there  was.  When  we  got  in  sight  of  the  gas 
house,  we  could  see  the  red  glare  on  the  round  wall. 
When  we  got  nearer,  we  could  see  the  raggedy 
flames  eating  up  into  the  black  air. 

The  men  that  lived  in  the  cars  were  trying  to 
scrabble  out  their  poor  belongings.  They  were 
shouting  queer,  throaty  cries  that  we  didn't  under- 
stand, but  some  of  the  folks  from  the  Flats  were  an- 
swering them.  I  think  that  it  seemed  queer  to  some 
of  us  that  those  men  of  the  bunk  cars  should  be 
having  a  fire  right  there  in  our  town. 

"  Don't  let's  get  too  near,"  says  somebody. 
"  They  might  have  small-pox  or  something." 

It  was  Mis'  Sykes,  with  Silas,  her  husband,  and 
him  carrying  that  bright  red  little  boy.  And  the 
baby,  kind  of  scared  at  all  the  noise  and  the  differ- 
ence, was  beginning  to  straighten  out  and  cry  words 
in  that  heathen  tongue  of  his. 

"  Mercy,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  I  can't  find  Berta. 
He's  going,"  she  says,  "  to  yell." 

Just  then  I  saw  something  that  excited  me  more 


36          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

than  the  baby.  There  was  one  car  near  the  middle 
that  was  burning  hard  when  the  stream  of  water 
struck  it.  And  I  saw  that  car  had  a  little  rag  of 
lace  curtain  at  its  window,  and  a  tin  can  with  a 
flower  in  it.  And  when  the  blaze  died  for  a  min- 
ute, and  the  roof  showed  all  burned,  but  not  the 
lower  part  of  the  car  or  the  steps,  I  saw  somebody  in 
blue  overalls  jump  up  the  steps,  and  then  an  arm 
tearing  down  that  rag  of  lace  curtain  and  catching  up 
the  tin  can. 

"  Well,"  I  says  pitiful,  "  ain't  that  funny?  Some 
man  down  there  in  a  bunk  car,  with  a  lace  curtain 
and  a  posy." 

I  started  down  that  way,  and  Mis'  Toplady,  Mis' 
Holcomb  and  the  Sykeses  come  too,  the  Sykeses  more 
to  see  if  walking  wouldn't  keep  the  baby  still.  It 
wouldn't.  That  baby  yelled  louder  than  I'd  ever 
heard  one,  which  is  saying  lots  but  not  too  much. 

When  we  all  got  down  nearer,  we  came  on  Mis' 
Swenson  and  Mis'  Amachi,  counting  up. 

"  We  can  take  in  two,"  says  Mis'  Swenson,  "  by 
four  of  the  children  sleeping  on  the  floor  that'll 
never  wake  up  to  know  it." 

"  One  can  sleep  on  our  lounge,"  says  Mis'  Amachi. 

"  We  can  put  a  couple  or  two  in  our  barn,"  says 
a  Flats  man.  "  Oh,  we'll  find  'em  room  —  no  trou- 
ble to  that." 

Mis'  Toplady  and  me  looked  at  each  other.  Al- 
ways before,  in  a  Friendship  Village  catastrophe,  her 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE  3? 

and  me  had  been  among  the  planners.  But  here  we 
were,  it  seemed,  left  out,  and  the  whole  thing  being 
seen  to  by  the  Flats. 

"  Say,"  says  Mis'  Toplady  all  of  a  sudden,  "  it's 
a  woman!  " 

We  were  down  in  front  by  now,  an-d  I  saw  her  too. 
The  blue  overalls,  as  I  had  called  them,  were  a  blue 
dress.  And  the  woman,  a  little  dark  thing  with  ear- 
rings, stood  there  with  her  poor,  torn  lace  curtain 
and  her  tin  can  with  a  geranium  all  wilted  down. 

"Mercy!"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  shuddering.  UA 
woman  down  here !  " 

But  I  was  looking  at  that  woman.  And  I  saw  she 
wasn't  listening  to  what  some  of  the  Flat  women  were 
saying  to  her.  She  had  her  head  up  and  back  as  if 
she  was  listening  to  something  else.  And  now  she  be- 
gan moving  through  the  crowd,  and  now  she  began 
running,  straight  to  where  all  of  us  stood  and  Mis' 
Sykes  was  trying  to  hush  the  crying  child. 

The  next  second  Mis'  Sykes  was  near  knocked 
down  by  the  wildness  and  the  strength  of  that  little 
dark  thing  who  threw  herself  on  her  and  grabbed 
the  baby. 

Speaking  Greek,  speaking  Hebrew,  and  Hittite, 
and  Amalekite,  and  the  tongues  of  Babylon  at  the 
confusipn  and  the  last  day  —  for  all  we  knew,  these 
were  what  that  woman  was  speaking.  We  couldn't 
make  more  head  nor  tail  out  of  what  she  was  say- 
ing than  we  had  of  the  baby.  But  we  could  under- 


38  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

stand  without  understanding.  It  was  in  her  throat, 
it  was  in  her  tears,  it  was  in  her  heart.  She  cried, 
she  sunk  down  to  the  ground,  kissing  that  baby.  He 
put  out  his  hands  and  went  right  to  her,  laughing  in 
the  midst  of  the  crying  —  oh,  I've  heard  a  baby  laugh 
in  its  tears  when  it  saw  its  mother,  but  this  one  was 
the  best.  And  he  snuggled  up  close,  while  she 
poured  all  over  him  them  barbarous  accents.  But 
he  knew  what  she  said,  and  he  said  them  back.  Like 
before  our  eyes  the  alphabet  of  vermicelli  had  begun 
spelling  words. 

Then  a  man  come  running  —  I  can  see  now  that 
open  collar,  that  face  covered  with  stubble,  those 
great  eyes  under  their  mass  of  tangled  hair,  the 
huge,  rough  hands  that  he  laid  about  the  baby's 
shoulders.  And  they  both  began  talking  to  us,  first 
one  and  then  both,  asking,  looking,  waiting  for  us  to 
reply.  Nobody  replied.  We  all  looked  to  Mis' 
Sykes  to  see  what  she  could  think  of,  as  we  always 
do  in  a  village  emergency. 

But  it  wasn't  Mis'  Sykes  that  could  help  us  now. 
It  was  the  Flat  folks.  It  was  them  that  could  un- 
derstand. Half  a  dozen  of  them  began  telling  us 
what  it  was  they  said.  It  seemed  so  wonderful  to 
see  the  folks  that  we  had  never  paid  attention  to,  or 
thought  they  knew  anything,  take  those  tangled 
sounds  and  unravel  them  for  us,  easy,  into  regular, 
right-down  words. 

It  seems  the  family  had  got  to  Friendship  Village 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          39 

night  before  last,  him  to  work  on  the  sewer  and  his 
wife  to  cook  for  the  men  in  the  bunk  cars.  There 
were  five  other  little  folks  with  them  —  sure  enough, 
there  they  were  now,  all  flocking  about  her  —  and 
the  oldest  girl  had  somehow  lost  the  baby.  Poor 
souls,  they  had  tried  to  ask.  But  he  knew  that  he 
must  dig  and  she  must  cook,  and  there  was  not  much 
time  for  asking,  and  eight  weeks  in  this  country  was 
all  that  they  had  and  hardly  three  words  of  Eng- 
lish. As  for  asking  the  law,  they  knew  the  law  only 
as  something  that  arrests  you. 

We  were  all  there  in  a  bunch  by  that  time,  every- 
body making  signs  to  everybody,  whether  anybody 
could  understand  or  not.  There  was  something 
about  those  two,  with  our  little  chap  in  the  midst  of 
them,  that  sort  of  loosened  us  all  up.  We  all  of  us 
understood  so  thorough  that  we  pretty  near  forgot 
the  fire. 

By  then  it  had  most  died  down  anyhow,  and  some- 
body started  to  move  back  up-town. 

"  The  hall,  the  hall!  "  says  Mis'  Toplady  to  us. 
"  Have  'em  all  go  up  to  the  Post-office  Hall. 
Spread  it,  spread  it!  " 

We  did  spread  it,  to  go  up  there  and  see  what  we 
could  do  for  the  burned-out  folks,  and  incidentally 
finish  the  peace  celebration. 

Up  there  in  Post-office  Hall  the  lights  were  all 
on,  just  as  we'd  left  them,  and  there  was  kind  of  a 
cozy  feel  of  supper  in  the  air. 


40          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"Look  here,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  "  there's  quarts 
of  coffee  hot  on  the  back  of  the  stove  and  a  whole 
mountain  of  sandwiches  — " 

"  Let's,"  I  says.     And  we  all  begun  to  do  so. 

We  all  begun  to  do  so,  and  I  begun  to  do  some- 
thing more.  I'd  learned  quite  a  little  from  seeing 
them  there  in  the  hall  and  kitchen  that  afternoon, 
the  Swensons  and  Poulakis  and  Amachis  and  the 
rest.  And  now  here  were  these  others,  from  the 
bunk  cars, —  big,  beautiful  eyes  they  had,  and  pa- 
tient looks,  and  little  bobbing  curtsies,  and  white 
teeth  when  they  smiled.  I  saw  them  now,  trying 
to  eat  and  behave  the  best  they  knew  how,  and  back 
of  them  the  Foreign  booth,  under  the  Foreign  flag. 
And  what  I  begun  to  have  to  do,  was  to  get  in  over 
behind  that  Foreign  Booth  and  wipe  up  my  eyes  a 
little. 

Once  I  peeked  out.  And  I  happened  to  see  the 
sheriff  going  by.  He  was  needed,  like  Mis'  Sykes 
told  him  he  might  be,  but  not  the  same,  either.  He 
was  passing  the  sugar  and  cream. 

What  brought  me  out  finally  was  what  I  heard 
Mis'  Sykes  saying: 

"  Ladies,"  says  she,  "  let's  us  set  her  up  there 
in  the  middle  of  the  Foreign  Booth,  with  her  little 
boy  in  her  lap.  That'll  be  just  the  finishing  for- 
eign touch,"  says  she,  "  to  our  booth." 

So  we  covered  a  chair  with  foreign  flags,  promis- 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          41 

cuous,  and  set  her  there.  Awful  pretty  and  serious 
she  looked. 

"  If  only  we  could  talk  to  her,"  says  Mis'  Sykes, 
grieving.  "  Ladies,  any  of  you  know  any  foreign 
sentences?  " 

All  any  of  us  could  get  together  was  terra  cotton 
and  delirium  tremens.  So  we  left  it  go,  and  just 
stood  and  looked  at  her,  and  smiled  at  her,  and 
clucked  at  the  little  boy,  and  at  all  her  little  folks  that 
come  around  her  in  the  booth,  under  the  different 
flags. 

"We'll  call  her  Democracy!  "  says  Mame  Hoi- 
comb,  that  often  blazes  up  before  the  match  is  lit. 
'  Why  not  call  her  the  Spirit  of  Democracy,  in  the 
newspaper  write-up?  " 

With  that  Mis'  Sykes  kind  of  stopped  winking  and 
breathing,  in  a  way  she  has. 

"  My  land,"  she  says,  "  but  s'pose  he's  an  enemy 
baby  and  she's  his  enemy  ma?  " 

There  hadn't  one  of  us  thought  of  that.  For  all 
we  had  made  out,  they  might  be  anything.  We  got 
hold  of  Mis'  Poulaki  and  Mis'  Amachi,  hot  foot. 

"  Ast  her  what  she  is,"  we  told  them.  "  Ast  her 
what  country  it  is  she  comes  from." 

"  Oh,"  says  Mis'  Poulaki,  "  that  we  know  al- 
ready. They're  Lithuanians  —  that  is  what  they 


are." 


Lithuanians.     Where  was  it?     Us  ladies  drew  to- 


42          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

gether  still  more  close.  Was  Lithuanians  central 
power  or  was  it  ally?  Us  ladies  ain't  so  very  geo- 
graphical, and  not  one  of  us  knew  or  could  make 
out. 

"  Say,"  says  Mis'  Toplady  finally,  "  shut  up,  all 
of  us.  If  it  gets  around  for  folks  to  wonder  at  — 
Why,  my  land,"  she  says,  "  their  bunk  car's  burned 
up  anyhow,  ain't  it?  Let's  us  shut  up." 

And  so  we  done.  And  everybody  was  up  around 
the  Foreign  Booth.  And  the  Friendship  Village 
booth  was  most  forgot. 

All  of  a  sudden,  somebody  started  up  "  America." 
I  don't  know  where  they'd  learned  it.  There  aren't 
so  very  many  chances  for  such  as  these  to  learn  it 
very  good.  Some  of  them  couldn't  say  a  word  of  it, 
but  they  could  all  keep  in  tune.  I  saw  the  side  faces 
of  the  Flats  folks  and  the  bunk  car  folks,  while  they 
hummed  away,  broken,  at  that  tune  that  they  knew 
about.  Oh,  if  you  want  to  know  what  to  do  next 
with  your  life,  go  somewhere  and  look  at  a  foreigner 
in  this  country  singing  "  America,"  when  he  doesn't 
know  you're  looking.  I  don't  see  how  we  rest  till 
we  get  our  land  a  little  more  like  what  he  thinks  it  is. 
And  while  I  was  listening,  it  seemed  as  if  Europe 
was  there  in  the  room. 

It  was  while  they  were  singing  that  the  magic  be- 
gan to  work  in  us  all.  I  remember  how  it  started. 

"  Oh,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  "  ladies !     Think  of 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE          43 

that  little  boy,  and  the  other  folks,  living  in  those 
bunk  cars.  Don't  it  seem  as  if,  while  they're  here, 
us  ladies  could — " 

"Don't  it?"  I  says. 

"  And  the  little  skinny  ones  down  on  the  Flats," 
Mis'  Toplady  whispers  pretty  soon.  "  Can't  some 
of  us  teach  them  women  how  to  feed  them  better  and 
cost  no  more?  " 

"  And  take  care  of  them  when  they're  sick,"  says 
Mame  Holcomb.  "  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  they  die 
when  they  don't  need  to,  all  day  long." 

We  see  ideas  gathering  back  of  one  another's 
eyes.  And  all  of  a  sudden  I  thought  of  something 
else.  "  Ladies,"  I  says,  "  and  get  sewerage  down 
there  on  the  Flats!  Don't  it  belong  there  just  ex- 
actly as  much  as  in  the  residence  part?  " 

Us  ladies  all  looked  at  each  other.  We'd  just 
taken  it  for  granted  the  Flats  shouldn't  have  sewer- 
age and  should  have  the  skeptic  tank. 

"  Say,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  "  it  don't  look  to  me 
like  we'd  have  a  very  hard  time  knowing  what  to  do 
with  ourselves,  now  this  war  is  over." 

*  The  mornings,"  says  Mame  Holcomb,  "  when 
we  use'  to  wake  up,  crazy  to  start  in  on  something  — 
it  looks  to  me  like  they  ain't  all  through  with  yet!  " 

"  The  meetings,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  "  when  Bap- 
tists and  Catholics  and  Elks  — " 

Mis'  Sykes  was  listening.     It  ain't  very  often  that 


44          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

she  comes  down  off  -her  high  horse,  but  when  she 
does,  I  tell  you  she  lands  hard. 

u  Ladies !  "  she  says.  "  It  was  me  that  was  talk- 
ing about  beginning  to  knit  for  another  war.  Why 
didn't  you  shut  me  up  and  bolt  the  door?  " 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  * 

When  I  have  told  this  story  of  Jeffro,  the  alien, 
some  one  has  always  said: 

{t  Yes,  but  there's  another  side  to  that.  They 
aren't  all  Jefros." 

When  stories  are  told  of  American  gentleness, 
childlike  faith,  sensitiveness  to  duty,  love  of  freedom, 
I  do  not  remember  to  have  heard  any  one  rejoin: 

"  Yes,  but  Americans  are  not  all  like  that." 

So  I  wonder  why  this  comment  should  be  made 
about  Jeffro. 


WHEN  Jeffro  first  came  knocking  at  my  door  that 
Spring  morning,  he  said  that  which  surprised  me 
more  than  anything  that  had  been  said  to  me  in 
years.  He  said: 

"  Madam,  if  you  have  a  house  for  rent  —  a  house 
for  rent.  Have  you?  " 

For  years  nobody  had  said  that  to  me;  and  the 
little  house  which  I  own  on  the  Red  Barns  road, 
not  far  from  the  schoolhouse,  was  falling  in  pieces 
because  I  never  could  get  enough  ahead  to  mend  it 

1  Copyright,   Everybody's  Magazine,    1915. 

45 


46  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

up.  In  the  road  in  front  of  it  there  was  a  big  hole 
that  had  never  been  filled  in.  And  the  house  only 
had  two  rooms  anyway  —  and  a  piece  of  ground 
about  as  big  as  a  rug;  and  the  house  was  pretty 
near  as  old  as  the  ground  was. 

"  Land,"  I  says,  u  man,  you  don't  want  to  rent 
that  house?  " 

He  smiled,  nice  and  wrinkled  and  gentle,  and  said 
yes,  he  did;  and  nothing  that  I,  as  my  own  real  estate 
agent,  could  say  discouraged  him.  Even  when  I'd 
whipped  off  my  kitchen  apron  and  found  the  key  to 
the  little  house  in  my  button-box,  and  had  gone 
down  the  road  with  him  to  look  the  house  over,  and 
let  him  see  what  it  was  like,  he  insisted  that  he 
wanted  to  rent  it.  And  so  in  the  end  he  done:  at 
four  dollars  a  month,  which  wasn't  much  more  than, 
by  rights,  the  sale  price  should  have  been. 

"  I  do  little  things  to  this  house,"  said  Jeffro.  "  I 
make  little  change  for  good.  I  have  some  handy 
with  a  hammer." 

I  remember  turning  back  a  ways  from  the  house, 
and  seeing  him  standing  there,  with  his  hands  behind 
him,  looking  at  the  house  as  if  it  was  something,  and 
something  of  his. 

When  I  got  home  and  was  up  in  the  garret  hunt- 
ing up  the  three  green  paper  shades  for  his  windows, 
it  come  to  me  that  I  hadn't  asked  him  for  any  ref- 
erences, and  that  for  all  I  knew  he  might  be  going 
to  counterfeit  money  or  whisky  or  something  there 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  47 

on  the  premises.  But  anybody'd  known  better  than 
that  just  to  look  at  Jeffro's  face.  A  wonderful  sur- 
prised face  he  had;  surprised,  but  believing  it  all 
too,  and  trusting  the  good.  A  brown  face,  with  big, 
brown  eyes,  and  that  wrinkled  smile  of  his.  I  like 
to  think  about  him. 

After  a  few  days  I  went  over  with  the  shades,  and 
he'd  got  a  few  pieces  of  furniture  there,  setting 
round,  loose  and  unattached.  And  on  a  big  basket 
of  stuff  was  sitting  a  little  boy,  about  eight  years  old. 

"  That's  Joseph,"  says  Jeffro,  simple.  "  We  are 
the  two  that  came." 

Then  he  told  me.  In  "  the  old  country  "  his  wife 
and  two  little  ones  were  waiting  till  he  could  earn 
money  to  send  back  for  them. 

"  I  thought  when  I  had  thes'  little  follow  here," 
he  said,  "  I  could  work  then  more  easy.  He  don't 
eat  but  little,"  he  added. 

"  But  how,"  says  I,  "  are  you  expecting  to  earn 
all  that  money  out  of  Friendship  Village  —  where 
folks  saves  for  years  to  put  on  a  new  stoop?  " 

At  this  he  smiled,  sort  of  knowing.  And  he 
pointed  to  a  poster  over  his  wood-box.  It  was 
printed  in  Yiddish,  all  but  the  words  "  United 
States";  but  the  picture  —  that  was  plain  enough. 
It  showed  a  mill  on  one  side  of  the  street,  and  a  bank 
on  the  other.  And  from  the  mill  a  stream  of  work- 
ingmen,  with  bags  of  money  on  their  backs,  were 
streaming  over  toward  the  bank. 


48          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

:<  That  was  put  up  on  my  cow-shed  at  home,"  said 
Jeffro.  "  I  have  brought  it.  But  I  have  no  trade  — 
I  can  not  earn  money  fast  like  those.  I  make  the 
toys." 

He  threw  open  the  door  into  the  only  other  room 
of  the  house.  In  it  was  piled  dozens  of  boxes,  and 
some  broad  shelves  to  be  put  up,  and  a  table  was 
covered  with  colored  stuff.  "  Then  I  go  up  to  the 
city  and  sell,"  said  he.  "  It  is  only  five  miles.  But 

I  can  not  live  there  —  not  with  thes'  boy.     I  say, 

I 1  vill  find  some  little  cheap  place  out  in  the  coun- 
try for  us  two.'     So  then  I  come  here.     I  am  now 
in  America  five  weeks,"  he  added,  proud. 

"  Five  weeks !  "  says  I.  "  Then  where'd  you 
learn  to  talk  American?  " 

"  I  have  study  and  save'  for  six-seven  years,  to  be 
ready,"  said  Jeffro,  simple.  "Now  I  come.  Next 
year  I  think  I  send  for  them." 

All  day  long  those  words  of  his  kept  coming  and 
ringing  in  my  ears.  And  it  kind  of  seemed  to  me 
that  in  them  was  a  great  chorus  —  a  chorus  of  thou- 
sands going  up  that  minute,  and  this  minute,  and 
all  the  time,  all  over  America : 

"  Now  I  come.  Next  year  I  think  I  send  for 
them." 

And  I  says  to  myself:  "What's  America  going 
to  do  for  him?  What's  America  going  to  do  to 
him?  What  are  we  going  to  do  to  him?  And 
what  is  he  going  to  do  for  us?  " 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  49 

Well,  the  story  of  the  first  few  weeks  of  Jeffro's 
in  Friendship  Village  is  for  me  a  kind  of  window 
set  in  the  side-wall  of  the  way  things  are. 

One  morning,  a  little  before  nine  o'clock,  I  had 
to  go  to  the  schoolhouse  to  see  Miss  Mayhew. 
When  I  went  by  Jeffro's  I  didn't  see  anything  of 
him,  but  when  I  got  along  by  the  schoolhouse 
grounds,  there  I  saw  him,  leaning  on  the  fence  under 
the  locust-tree. 

"  Good  morning,  Mr.  Jeffro,"  I  says.  "  Do  the 
children  bother  you  down  to  your  house  with  their 
noise?  That's  one  reason  my  house  used  to  be  so 
hard  to  rent,  it  was  so  close  by  the  schoolhouse." 

His  face,  when  he  turned  to  me,  startled  me. 

"  Bother  me!"  he  said,  slow.  "Every  day  I 
come  across  to  look  at  them  near.  To  see  them  — 
it  is  a  vender.  Thes'  big  building,  thes'  big  yard, 
thes'  children  that  do  no  vork,  only  learn,  learn. 
And  see  —  Joseph  is  there.  Over  by  the  swing  — 
you  see  him?  He  learn,  too  —  my  Joseph —  I  do 
not  even  buy  his  books.  It  is  free  —  all  free.  I 
am  always  vatching  them  in  thes'  place.  It  is  a 
vender." 

Then  one  night,  when  he  had  been  there  about 
two  weeks,  Jeffro's  house  caught  fire.  A  candle  that 
he  used  for  melting  his  wax  tipped  over  on  his  toy 
shavings  and  blazed  up.  Timothy  Toplady,  driv- 
ing by,  heard  him  shout,  and  galloped  into  town  for 
the  department,  and  they  went  tearing  out  Red  Barns 


50          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

way  soon  after  Jeffro  had  the  fire  put  out.  He  was 
making  toys  again  when  the  fire-engine  drew  up  at 
his  gate,  and  the  men  came  trampling  up  to  his  porch, 
wanting  the  blaze  pointed  out  to  them.  Bud  Miles, 
that's  in  the  department,  told  me  how  Jeffro  stood 
in  the  door  bowing  to  them  and  regretting  the  trou- 
ble he'd  made,  and  apologizing  to  them  for  not  hav- 
ing any  fire  ready  for  them  to  put  out. 

And  the  next  day  Jeffro  walked  into  the  engine 
house  and  asked  the  men  sitting  round  with  their 
heels  up  how  much  he  owed  them. 

"  For  what?  "  says  they. 

"  For  putting  down  my  fire,"  Jeffro  says.  "  That 
is,  for  coming  to  put  it  down  if  I  had  one." 

The  men  stared  at  him  and  burst  out  laughing. 
u  Why  nothing,"  they  said.  "  That  don't  cost  any- 
thing. That's  free." 

Jeffro  just  stood  and  looked  at  them.  "  Free?  " 
he  said.  "  But  the  big  engine  and  the  wagons  and 
the  men  and  the  horses  — does  nobody  pay  them  to 
come  and  put  down  fires?  " 

41  Why,  the  town  does,"  they  told  him.  "  The 
town  pays  them." 

He  said  eagerly :  "  No,  no  —  you  have  not  un- 
derstood. I  pay  no  taxes  —  I  do  not  help  that  way 
with  taxes.  Then  I  must  pay  instead  —  no?  " 

They  could  hardly  make  him  understand.  All 
these  big  things  put  at  his  service,  even  the  town  fire- 
bell  rung,  and  nothing  to  pay  for  it.  His  experience 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  51 

with  cities  was  slight,  in  any  case.  He  went  off, 
looking  all  dazed,  and  left  the  men  shouting.  It 
seemed  such  a  joke  to  the  men  that  it  shouldn't  be 
all  free.  It  seemed  so  wonderful  to  Jeffro  that  it 
should. 

He  hadn't  gone  half  a  block  from  the  engine- 
house  when  he  turned  round  and  went  back. 

"  The  gentlemen  have  not  understood,"  he  said. 
"  I  am  not  yet  a  citizen.  I  have  apply  for  my  first 
papers,  but  I  am  not  yet  a  citizen.  Whoever  is  not 
citizen  must  pay  for  this  fire  attention.  Is  it  not 
so?" 

Then  they  shouted  again.  Think  of  stopping 
to  find  out  whether  a  man  was  a  citizen  before  they 
put  his  fire  out!  Everybody  in  Friendship  Village 
was  telling  that  to  each  other  for  weeks,  and  splitting 
their  sides  over  it. 

Less  than  a  couple  of  weeks  afterward  Jeffro  got 
a  letter  from  home,  from  his  wife.  Postmaster  Silas 
Sykes  handed  it  out  to  him  when  Jeffro  come  in  the 
post-office  store  for  some  groceries,  and  when  he 
started  to  pay  for  the  groceries  Jeffro  says : 

"  How  much  on  the  letter?  " 

"  Why,  they's  nothing  due  on  that,"  says  Silas, 
squinting  at  it  over  the  sugar-barrel. 

"  But  thes'  is  only  old  country  stamp  on  here," 
said  Jeffro.  "  It  is  not  enough  for  all  this  way  in 
America  too?  " 

Silas  waved  his  hand  at  him  like  the  representa- 


52  PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

tive  of  the  gover'ment  he  was.  "  Your  Uncle  Sam 
pays  for  all  that,"  says  he. 

Jeffro  looks  at  him  a  minute,  then  he  says: 
"Uncle  Sam  —  is  that,  then,  a  person?  I  see  the 
pictures  — " 

"  Sure,  sure,"  says  Silas,  winking  to  Timothy  Top- 
lady  that  stood  by.  "  Uncle  Sam  takes  grand  care 
of  us,  you  bet." 

"  I  am  not  yet  a  citizen,"  Jeffro  insisted.  "  I 
have  apply  for  my  first  papers  — " 

"  Go  'long,"  says  Silas,  magnificent.  "  Do  you 
s'pose  Uncle  Sam  bothers  himself  about  that?  You 
belong  to  his  family  as  soon  as  you  strike  shore." 

Timothy  Toplady  told  me  about  it.  "  And,"  says 
he,  "  do  you  know  that  man  went  out  of  the  store 
looking  perfectly  queer !  And  kind  of  solemn." 

All  these  things  begun  to  open  my  eyes.  Here, 
all  my  life,  I'd  been  taking  things  for  granted.  My 
school-days,  the  fire-engine,  postage-stamps,  and  all 
the  rest,  I'd  took  for  granted,  just  like  this  genera- 
tion is  taking  for  granted  aeroplanes.  And  all  of  a 
sudden  now,  I  see  how  they  were:  not  gifts  to  me, 
but  powers  of  the  big  land.  I'd  always  thought  of  a 
village  as  a  person.  But  a  Big  Land  —  that  had 
powers  too!  And  was  developing  more  as  fast  as 
its  folks  would  let  it. 

And  it  was  wonderful  consoling.  It  helped  me 
over  more  than  I  can  tell.  When  Silas  Sykes  give 
light  measure  on  my  sugar  and  oatmeal,  thinks  I : 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  53 

"  Well,  you're  just  a  little  piece  of  the  Big  Land's 
power  of  business  —  and  it  ain't  grown  yet.  It's 
only  just  growing." 

And  when  the  Friendship  Village  Married  Ladies' 
Cemetery  Improvement  Sodality  —  that's  just  the 
name  of  it  and  it  works  at  more  things  than  just 
cemetery  —  when  it  had  spent  five  years  studying 
our  gover'ment,  and  then  turned  around  and  created 
an  executive  board  whose  reports  to  the  Society  of 
Forty  had  to  be  made  unanimous  —  I  says  to  myself : 

"  Well,  the  club's  just  a  little  piece  of  the  Big 
Land's  power  of  democracy,  and  it  ain't  grown  yet. 
It's  only  just  growing." 

And  when  the  Friendship  Village  chapter  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution  refused  to 
leave  us  ladies  borrow  their  copy  of  the  American 
flag  because  they  reverenced  it  so  hard  they  were 
afraid  it  would  get  tore,  I  says  to  myself: 

"  But  it's  just  a  little  scrap  of  the  Big  Land's 
power  of  patriotism  to  the  universe,  and  it  ain't 
grown  yet  only  just  to  one  country  —  and  not  entirely 
to  that." 

And  it  made  me  see  things  intimate  and  tender. 
And  it  was  Jeffro  that  did  that  for  me. 

That  summer  he  come  to  kind  of  belong  to  the 
town,  the  way  a  hill  or  a  tree  does,  only  lots  more  so. 
At  first,  folks  used  to  call  him  "  that  Jew  peddler," 
and  circus  day  I  heard  Mis'  Sykes  saying  we  better 
lock  up  our  doors  during  the  parade,  because  we 


54          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

didn't  know  what  "  that  foreigner  "  might  take  it  in 
his  head  to  do. 

"  Mis'  Sykes,"  says  I,  "  where  were  your  mother 
and  father  born?  " 

"  New  York  state,"  says  she,  like  the  right  answer. 

"  And  their  folks?  "  I  went  on. 

"  Massachusetts,"  says  she,  like  she  was  going  to 
the  head  now  sure. 

"And  their  folks?"  I  continued,  smooth. 
"  Where'd  they  come  from?  " 

Mis'  Sykes  began  to  wobble.  "  Well,"  says  she, 
"  there  was  three  brothers  come  over  together  — " 

"  Yes,"  I  says,  "  I  know.  There  always  is. 
Well,  where'd  they  come  from?  And  where'd  their 
folks  come  from?  Were  they  immigrants  to  Amer- 
ica, too?  Or  did  they  just  stay  foreigners  in  Eng- 
land or  Germany  or  Scandinavia  or  Russia,  maybe?  " 
says  I.  "Which  was  it?" 

Mis'  Sykes  put  on  her  most  ancestral  look.  "  You 
can  ask  the  most  personal  questions,  Calliope,"  she 
began. 

"  Personal,"  says  I.  "  Why,  I  dunno.  I  thought 
that  question  was  real  universal.  For  all  we  know, 
it  takes  in  a  dozen  nations  with  their  blood  flowing, 
sociable,  in  with  yours.  It's  awful  hard  for  any 
of  us,"  I  says,  "  to  find  a  real  race  to  be  foreign  to. 
I  wouldn't  bet  I  was  foreign  to  no  one,"  says  I,  "  nor 
that  no  one  was  foreign,  for  certain,  to  me." 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  55 

"  I  shall  lock  my  door  circus  day,  just  the  same," 
says  Mis'  Sykes. 

"Do,"  says  I.  "Circuses  is  likely  to  be  fol- 
lowed up  by  hoodlums.  And  I've  known  them  to 
be  native-born,  now  and  again." 

But  after  a  while,  in  spite  of  his  being  a  foreigner, 
most  everybody  got  to  like  Jeffro.  You  couldn't 
help  it  —  he  was  so  patient  and  ready  to  believe. 
And  the  children  —  the  children  that  like  your  heart 

—  they  all  loved  him.     They  would  follow  him  along 
the  curb,  and  he'd  set  down  and  show  them  his  pack 

—  time  and  again  I've  come  on  him  in  a  shady  side- 
street  opening  his  pack  for  them.     And  sometimes 
when  he  had  a  new  toy  made,  he'd  walk  up  to  the 
schoolhouse  a-purpose  to  show  it  to  them,  and  they'd 
all  crowd  round  him,  at  recess. 

On  account  of  that,  the  children's  folks  took  to 
noticing  him  and  speaking  to  him.  And  folks  done 
little  things  for  him  and  for  Joseph.  Abigail  Ar- 
nold, that  keeps  the  home  bakery,  she  had  him  make 
a  wooden  bridal  pair  for  the  top  of  the  wedding- 
cake  she  keeps  permanent  in  her  show  window;  Mis' 
Timothy  Toplady  had  him  do  little  odd  jobs  around 
their  place,  and  she'd  pay  him  with  a  cooked  chicken. 
He'd  show  most  all  of  us  the  picture  of  his  little 
young  wife  and  the  two  children  — 

"  I  declare,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  kind  of  wonder- 
ing, "  since  I've  seen  the  picture  of  his  wife  and 


56          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

babies  he  don't  seem  to  me  much  more  foreign  than 
anybody  else." 

I  happened  over  to  Jeffro's  one  morning  with  a 
loaf  of  my  brown  bread  and  a  half  a  johnny-cake. 
He  seemed  to  know  how  to  cook  pretty  well,  but  still 
I  felt  more  or  less  sorry  for  him  and  the  little  boy, 
and  I  used  to  take  them  in  a  thing  or  two  less  than 
half  occasionally.  When  I  stepped  up  to  the  door 
that  night  I  heard  him  singing  —  he  used  to  sing 
low,  funny  songs  while  he  worked.  And  when  he 
opened  the  door  for  me,  all  of  a  sudden  he  blushed 
to  the  top  of  his  face.  And  he  bowed  his  funny, 
stiff  way,  and  says : 

"  Veil,  I  see  I  blush  like  boys.  It  is  because  I 
was  singing  a  little  —  vat-you-call,  lull'by.  Ven  I 
make  the  toys  I  am  always  thinking  how  little  children 
vill  go  to  sleep  holding  vat  I  make,  and  sometimes  I 
put  in  lull'bies,  in  case  there  is  no  mother  to  sing 
them." 

That  was  like  Jeffro.  I  mention  it  because  Jeffro 
was  just  like  that. 

I'd  set  down  the  bread  and  the  johnny-cake,  and 
he'd  thanked  me  —  Jeffro  always  thanked  folks  like 
he'd  just  been  give  a  piece  of  new  life  with  every 
kindness  —  and  I  dunno  but  he  had  —  I  dunno  but 
we  all  have;  and  I'd  started  to  go,  when  he  says  hes- 
itating: 

"  I  have  vanted  to  ask  you  thes' :  If  I  vork  at 
that  bad  place  in  the  road  in  front  —  if  I  bring  sand 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  57 

from  the  hill  behind,  what  I  can,  and  fill  in  that  hole, 
slow,  you  know  —  but  some  every  day  —  you  would 
not  mind?  " 

"Mind?"  says  I.  "Why,  my,  no.  But  it's 
part  the  village's  business  to  do  that.  You're  in  the 
village  limits,  you  know.  It'd  ought  to  been  done 
long  ago." 

'  The  village?  "  said  he.  "  But  it  is  your  place. 
Why  should  the  village  fix  that  hole?  " 

"  It's  the  village's  business,"  I  told  him,  "  to  keep 
the  streets  good.  Most  of  them  do  it  pretty  lacka- 
daisical, but  it's  their  business  to  do  it." 

His  face  lit  up  like  turning  up  the  wick.  "  Nuf  " 
he  cried.  "  So  I  vill  do.  I  thought  it  vould  be 
you  I  am  doing  it  for,  and  I  vas  glad.  But  if  it  is 
the  village,  then  I  am  many  times  more  glad  of 
that." 

It  wasn't  much  of  a  compliment  to  a  lady,  but  I 
thought  I  see  what  he  meant. 

"  Why  are  you  glad,  Mr.  Jeffro,"  I  says,  to  make 
sure,  "  that  it's  the  village?  " 

"  It  does  all  the  things  for  me,"  he  says,  simple. 
"  The  fire-engine,  the  post-office  —  even  the  tele- 
phone is  free  to  me  in  the  village.  So  it  is  America 
doing  this  for  me;  for  thes'  village,  it  belongs  to 
America.  There  is  no  army  that  I  go  in  or  pay  to 
keep  out  of  —  there  are  no  soldiers  that  are  jostling 
me  in  the  streets  —  they  do  not  even  make  me  buy 
and  put  up  any  flag.  And  my  little  Joseph,  all  day 


58          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

long  he  is  learning.  And  the  people  —  here  they 
call  me  '  Mr.'  All  is  free  —  free.  For  all  thes' 
I  pay  nothing.  And  now  you  tell  me  here  is  a  hole 
that  it  is  the  village  business  to  fill  up.  It  is  the 
business  of  America  to  fill  up  that  hole !  Veil,  I  can 
make  that  my  business,  for  a  little  —  what-you-say 
—  pay-back." 

It  was  awful  hard  to  know  what  to  say.  I  won- 
der what  you'd  have  said?  I  just  stood  still  and 
kept  still.  Because,  if  I'd  known  what  to  say,  it 
would  have  been  pretty  hard,  just  then,  to  say  it 
anyway. 

"  It  is  a  luck  for  the  folks,"  he  said,  "  that  their 
own  vork  lets  them  make  some  paying  back.  My 
toys,  they  don't  pay  back,  not  very  much.  I  must 
find  another  vay." 

He  followed  me  out  on  the  stoop. 

"  There  is  von  thing  they  vill  let  me  do  after  a 
vile,  though,"  he  said,  with  a  smile.  "  In  America, 
I  hear  everybody  make  von  long,  strong  groaning 
about  their  taxes.  Those  taxes,  ven  vill  they  come  ? 
And  are  they  so  very  big,  then  ?  They  must  be  very 
big  to  pay  for  all  the  free  things." 

"  Why,  Mr.  Jeffro,"  I  said,  "  but  you  won't  have 
any  taxes." 

"  But  I  am  to  be  a  citizen !  "  he  cried.  "  Every 
citizen  pays  his  taxes." 

"  No,"  I  told  him.  "  No,  they  don't.  And  un- 
less you  own  property  or  —  or  something,"  says  I, 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  59 

stumbling  as  delicate  as  I  could,  "  you  don't  pay  any 
taxes  at  all,  Mr.  Jeffro." 

When  I  made  him  know  that  sure,  he  lifted  his 
arms  and  let  them  drop;  and  he  come  on  down  the 
path  with  me,  and  he  stood  there  by  the  syringa 
bush  at  the  gate,  looking  off  down  the  little  swell- 
ing hill  to  where  the  village  nestled  at  the  foot. 
School  was  just  out,  and  the  children  were  flooding 
down  the  road,  and  the  whole  time  was  peaceful 
and  spacious  and  close-up-to,  like  a  friend.  We 
stood  still  for  a  minute,  while  I  was  thinking  that; 
and  when  I  turned  to  Jeffro,  he  stood  with  the  tears 
running  down  his  cheeks. 

'  To  think  there  is  such  a  place,"  he  said  rever- 
ently. u  And  me  in  it.  And  them  going  to  be 
here."  Then  he  looked  at  me  like  he  was  seeing 
more  than  his  words  were  saying.  "  I  keep  think- 
ing," he  said,  "  how  hard  God  is  vorking,  all  over 
the  earth  —  and  how  good  He's  succeeded  here." 

Up  to  the  gate  run  little  Joseph,  his  school-books 
in  his  arms.  Jeffro  put  both  hands  on  the  boy. 

"  Little  citizen,  little  citizen,"  his  father  said. 
And  it  was  like  one  way  of  being  baptized. 

II 

When  I  was  a  little  girl,  a  cardinal  bird  came  one 
summer  and  nested  in  our  yard.  They  almost  never 
come  so  far  north,  and  I  loved  him  like  a  friend. 
When  autumn  came,  the  other  birds  all  went,  but  hr 


60          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

didn't  go.  And  one  day,  in  the  first  snow  and  high 
wind,  he  was  storm-beaten  into  our  little  porch,  and 
we  caught  him.  We  dare  not  let  him  go,  in  the  cold. 
So  we  kept  him  until  he  died.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  change  that  the  days  made.  I  cannot  bear  to 
tell  or  to  think  about  the  change  in  him  that  the 
days  made.  That  is  why  I  will  never  have  about  me 
a  caged  thing,  bird  or  beast  or  spirit.  The  cardinal 
helped  me  to  understand.  I  wonder  if  the  death  of 
any  beauty  or  any  life  is  as  much  Nature's  will  as  we 
still  think  it  is.  ... 

This  is  why  I  shrink  from  telling  what  next  hap- 
pened to  Jeffro  —  what  I  knew  must  happen  to  him 
if  he  came  here  and  lived  the  life  of  his  kind  —  of 
my  kind.  Lived  it,  I  mean,  with  his  eyes  open. 
There  are  plenty  who  live  it  and  never  know  any- 
thing about  it,  after  all.  But  Jeffro  would  know. 
He  had  seeing  eyes,  and  his  heart  was  the  heart  of 
a  child,  and  his  face  was  always  surprised  —  sur- 
prised, but  believing  it  all  too,  and  trusting  the  good. 
He  trusted  the  good  just  as  you  and  I  did,  in  the  be- 
ginning. Just  as  you  and  I  do,  in  the  end.  But  in 
between  the  two  trusts  there  comes  a  black  time ;  and 
if  it  hasn't  come  to  you,  then  you  don't  know  the  Big 
Land;  and  you  don't  see  what's  going  on  in  it;  and 
you  haven't  questioned  where  it's  all  going  to  lead. 
As,  after  a  while,  Jeffro  questioned  it. 

All  summer  he  worked  at  his  toys,  and  all  the 
autumn.  But  when  winter  began  to  come,  the  little 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  61 

house  was  hard  to  heat.  The  roof  was  decayed,  the 
windows  were  shrunken,  the  floor  was  in  a  draft 
from  all  four  directions ;  and  I  didn't  have  the  money 
to  make  the  house  over  —  which  was  just  about  what 
it  needed.  I  offered  to  rent  him  and  the  little  boy 
a  room  in  my  house,  and  to  let  him  do  his  work 
there;  but  it  was  far  for  the  little  fellow  to  go  to 
school.  And  just  then  came  the  Offer. 

A  man  from  a  mining  town  in  the  next  state  gave 
Jeffro  a  chance  to  go  there  with  him,  and  he'd  give 
him  work  in  the  mines  all  winter.  Jeffro  listened, 
and  heard  about  the  good  pay,  and  the  plain,  hearty 
food,  and  the  chance  to  get  ahead;  and  Miss  Mayhew 
said  she'd  keep  the  little  boy;  and  Jeffro  thought 
about  the  cold  little  house,  and  feeding  himself  all 
winter,  and  about  standing  on  street  corners  with 
his  pack;  and  there  was  Miss  Mayhew's  nice,  warm 
house  and  woman-care  for  the  little  boy.  And  in 
the  end  Jeffro  went.  I  told  him  to  leave  his  things 
in  the  little  house  and  I  wouldn't  charge  him  rent, 
which  it  wasn't  worth  it. 

The  night  before  he  started  he  come  round  to  my 
house  to  say  good-by.  He  thanked  me,  so  nice,  for 
what  I'd  done,  off  and  on.  And  then  he  pulled 
something  out  of  his  pocket. 

"Look!"  he  said.  "It  is  from  the  National 
Bank.  It  is  my  bank-book  —  the  proofs  that  I  have 
money  there.  Here  is  my  checker  book,"  said  he. 
"  You  know  how  these  things  go.  See  that!  "  His 


62          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

eyes  got  big  and  deep.  "  They  give  me  credit  — 
and  thes'  two  books,"  he  said.  "  And  they  vill  give 
me  interest  on  thes'  little  money.  It  vill  make  money 
for  me  vile  I  am  gone.  It  is  a  vonder.  I  ask' 
them  vat  there  is  to  pay  for  this  chance,  and  the  man 
laughed.  And  see  —  all  the  vile  I  am  gone,  Joseph 
vill  be  learning  free.  I  pay  no  more  than  his  little 
board.  It  is  a  vonder." 

He  showed  me  the  entry,  thirty-seven  dollars,  his 
summer's  savings.  He  had  had  to  keep  back  the 
amount  of  his  fare. 

"  The  ticket  is  much,"  he  said,  "  but  thes'  vay  I 
can  save  enough  by  spring  so  they  can  come.  They 
can  live  in  your  little  house  —  oh,  it  is  a  plenty  room. 
Ve  shall  have  a  little  garden  —  as  big  as  Joseph's 
plate !  She  vill  keep  a  little  coop  of  chickens  — " 

So  he  ran  on  with  his  happy  planning.  I  remem- 
ber how  he  looked  when  he  left  my  house  that  night 
—  his  two  books  tightly  clasped,  his  shoulders  back, 
his  head  full  of  dreams,  his  face  sort  of  held  up  to 
the  stars.  I  never  saw  him  that  way  again. 

It  was  a  long  winter.  It's  strange  how  the  cal- 
endar sets  down  winter  as  just  being  three  months 
when  everybody  that's  lived  through  one  knows  how 
it's  either  long  or  short  and  never,  never  clipped 
right  off  at  the  three  months,  same  as  the  almanac 
would  have  you  believe.  This  one  was  long,  and 
it  was  white,  and  it  was  deep.  It  kept  me  shoveling 
coal  and  splitting  kindling  and  paying  for  stove-wood 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  63 

and  warming  my  feet,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  was 
pretty  near  all  I  did  do  those  months.  It's  surpris- 
ing and  it's  discouraging  how  much  of  our  lives  goes 
along  just  doing  the  little  fussy  things  necessary  to 
keep  a-going,  that  you  can't  count  in  on  just  pure, 
sheer  living. 

"  Eight  hours  for  work,  eight  hours  for  sleep, 
and  eight  hours  for  exercise,"  they  used  to  tell  me; 
and  I  used  to  think:  "Yes,  but  what  about  just 
messing-round?  "  That  don't  get  itself  counted  in 
at  all,  and  that  just  eats  up  time  by  the  dialful.  And 
I  think,  if  you  look  close,  that  one  of  the  things 
we've  got  to  learn  is  how  to  do  less  of  the  little 
hectoring,  wearing  messing-round,  and  to  do  more 
of  the  big,  plain,  real,  true,  unvarnished  living  — 
like  real  work,  and  real  play,  and  real  talk,  and 
real  thinking.  And  fewer  little  jobs  —  fewer  little 
jobs. 

But  after  a  while  the  winter  got  done,  and  early 
April  came  —  a  little  faint  green  down  below,  a 
little  fine  gold  up  above,  and  a  great  wide  wash  of 
pale  blue  at  the  top;  Spring  in  three  layers. 

I'd  been  often  to  see  Joseph,  and  he  was  well, 
and  in  the  reader  ahead  of  the  reader  a  boy  of  his 
age  would  naturally  have  been  in.  He  had  had  sev- 
eral short  letters  from  his  father,  and  I  was  looking 
to  have  one  of  them  say  when  we  might  expect  him, 
but  none  of  them  did. 

Then  in  April  no  letter  came.     We  thought  it 


64          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

meant  that  he'd  be  home.  I'd  been  over  and  cleaned 
the  little  house.  And  then  when  April  was  almost 
to  a  close,  and  he  hadn't  come  yet,  I  saw  it  would  be 
too  late  for  his  garden,  so  I  planted  that  —  a  few 
vegetables,  and  a  few  flowers,  and  a  morning-glory 
or  two  over  the  stoop.  And  I  laid  in  a  few  canned 
things  in  his  cupboard,  so's  he  would  have  something 
to  start  in  on. 

May  came,  and  we  wondered.  Then  one  day 
there  was  a  letter  in  a  strange  writing.  Jeffro  was 
in  the  hospital,  it  said,  and  he  wanted  to  send  word 
that  he  was  all  right  and  would  send  a  letter  himself 
in  a  little  while.  That  was  all  that  it  told  us. 

Everybody  in  Friendship  Village  remembers  that 
spring,  because  it  was  the  year  the  bank  closed  down. 
Nobody  knew  the  reason.  Some  day,  when  the 
world  gets  really  to  going,  one  of  the  things  they'll 
read  about  in  musty  books  and  marvel  over  will  be 
the  things  we  call  panics.  They'll  know  then  that, 
put  simple,  it's  just  another  name  for  somebody's 
greed,  dressed  up  becoming  as  Conditions.  We're 
beginning  now  to  look  at  the  quality  of  the  clothes 
Conditions  dress  in,  and  we're  finding  them  pretty 
poor  quality  sometimes,  and  cut  awful  old-fashioned, 
and  the  dye  rubs  off.  But  in  those  days,  all  we  knew 
was  that  the  bank  had  "  suspended  payment." 

"  But  what's  that  mean  — '  suspended  pay- 
ment? '  "  I  says  to  Silas  Sykes  that  told  me.  "  You 
can't  suspend  your  debts,  can  you?  I  never  could." 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  65 

"  It  means,"  Silas  says,  "  that  they'll  never  pay 
a  cent  on  the  dollar.  That's  what  it  means." 

"  But,"  I  says,  "  I  don't  understand.  If  I  owe 
you  ten  dollars,  I  can't  put  down  my  curtain  and 
suspend  that  payment,  can  I?  " 

"  Well,  you  ain't  banks,"  says  Silas.     "  And  banks 


is." 


I  was  walking  away  and  thinking  it  over,  when  I 
stopped  stock-still  in  the  street.  The  National  Bank 
—  it  was  the  National  Bank  that  Jeffro  had  his 
thirty-seven  dollars  in. 

I  felt  as  if  I  had  to  do  something  for  him,  then  and 
there.  And  that  afternoon  I  took  my  trowel  and 
went  up  to  his  little  place,  and  thought  I'd  dig  round 
some  in  the  garden  that  was  coming  up,  gay  as  a 
button. 

When  I  stepped  inside  the  gate,  I  looked  up  at 
the  house,  and  I  saw  the  front  door  was  open. 
"  Land,"  I  thought,  "  I  hope  they  haven't  stole  what 
little  he  had  in  there,  too."  And  I  stepped  up  to 
the  door. 

In  the  wooden  chair  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  sat 
Jeffro.  His  hat  was  pulled  down  over  his  eyes,  his 
legs  were  thrust  out  in  front  of  him,  one  of  his  arms 
was  hanging  down,  and  the  other  one  was  in  a  white 
sling. 

"Mr.  Jeffro  — Mr.  Jeffro!"  I  says.  "Oh  — 
what's  the  matter?  " 

He  looked  up,  and  his  face  never  changed  at  sight 


66          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

of  me,  nor  he  never  got  up  or  moved.  And  his 
look  —  well,  it  wasn't  the  look  of  Jeffro  any  more 
than  feathers  have  the  look  of  a  bird.  But  one  thing 
I  knew  about  that  look  —  he  w-as  hungry.  I  could 
tell  that  look  anywhere,  because  I've  been  hungry 
myself,  with  rfo  food  coming  from  anywheres. 

I  flew  to  the  cupboard  where  I'd  put  in  the  few 
things,  and  in  a  jiffy  I  had  some  soup  heating  and 
a  box  of  cracker-s  opened.  I  brought  the  bowl  to 
the  table,  all  steaming  and  good-smelling,  and  he 
drew  up  there  without  a  word  and  ate  with  his  hat 
on  —  ate  like  I  never  saw  a  man  eat  before. 

When  he  got  through:  "  Tell  me  about  it,  Mr. 
Jeffro,"  I  says.  And  he  told  me. 

It  wasn't  anything  very  new.  Jeffro  had  been  in 
the  mines  since  the  first  of  November,  and  the  first 
of  January  the  strike  had  begun  —  the  strike  against 
a  situation  that  Jeffro  drew  for  me  that  afternoon, 
telling  it  without  any  particular  heat,  but  just  plain 
and  quiet.  He  told  me  how  he  had  gone  with  some 
of  the  men  to  the  house  of  one  of  the  owners  to  talk 
of  settlement. 

u  I  spoke  out  to  him  once,"  said  Jeffro.  "  I  said: 
4  Will  you  tell  me  how  this  is?  They  can  not  make 
me  understand.  America  gives  me  free  all  the  things 
that  I  did  not  expect:  The  fire-engine,  it  takes  no 
pay.  My  little  boy's  school  costs  me  not  anything. 
When  I  come  to  this  state  I  have  no  passport  to  get, 
and  they  did  not  search  me  at  the  frontier.  All  this 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  67 

is  very  free.  But  when  we  want  more  bread,  and 
we  are  willing  to  work  for  it  all  day  long  with  our 
hands,  you  will  not  let  us  have  more,  even  then. 
Even  when  we  pay  with  work.  Will  you  tell  me 
how  this  is  ?  '  " 

Of  all  that  the  man  had  said  to  him,  kindly  enough, 
Jeffro  understood  nothing.  And  he  could  speak  the 
language,  while  many  of  the  men  in  the  mines  could 
not  say  one  word  of  English. 

"  But  they  could  strike  in  Russian  and  Polish  and 
Lithuanian,"  Jeffro  said,  "  and  they  did." 

Then  came  the  soldiers.  Jeffro  told  me  about 
that. 

"  Ve  vere  standing  there  outside  the  Angel  mine," 
he  said,  "  to  see  that  nobody  vent  to  vork  and  spoiled 
our  hopes,  ven  somebody  cried  out :  *  The  sol- 
diers !  '  Many  of  the  men  ran  —  I  did  not  know 
vy.  Here  was  some  of  the  United  States  army.  I 
had  never  seen  any  of  the  army  before.  I  hurried 
toward  them,  my  cap  in  my  hand.  I  saw  their  fine 
uniforms,  their  fine  horses,  this  army  that  was  kept 
to  protect  me,  a  citizen,  and  vich  I  did  not  have  to 
pay.  I  stood  bowing.  My  heart  felt  good.  They 
had  come  to  help  us  then  —  free !  And  then  some- 
body cried.  *  He's  one  of  the  damned,  disorderly 
picketers.  Arrest  him!  '  And  they  did;  and  noth- 
ing I  could  say  vould  make  them  understand.  I  vas 
in  jail  four  days,  but  all  those  days  I  thought  it  vas  a 
mistake.  I  smiled  to  think  how  sorry  they  vould  be 


68          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

ven  they  found  out  they  had  arrested  von  they  were 
paid  to  protect  —  free." 

He  told  me  how  there  went  on  the  days,  the  weeks, 
of  the  strike;  hunger,  cold;  the  militia  everywhere. 
The  little  that  Jeffro  had  earned  was  spent,  dime  by 
dime.  He  stayed  on,  hoping  for  the  settlement,  cer- 
tain that  it  would  all  be  right  as  soon  as  everybody 
"  understood." 

"  It  vas  this  vay,"  he  said  laboriously.  "  Mine- 
owners  and  money  and  militia  vere  here.  Over  here 
vere  the  men.  Vrong  vas  done  on  both  sides  —  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  vrong.  The  sides  could  not  speak 
together  clear.  No  von  understood  no  von." 

Then  a  miner  had  resisted  an  officer  who  tried  to 
arrest  him,  the  officer  fired,  and  Jeffro  had  the  bullet 
in  his  shoulder,  and  had  been  locked  up  for  being 
%<  implicated  " — "  I  don't  know  yet  vat  they  mean 
by  that  long  vord,"  Jeffro  said  —  and  had  been  taken 
to  the  courthouse  and  later  to  the  hospital.  On  his 
discharge,  eight  days  ago,  he  had  started  to  walk 
home  to  Friendship  Village. 

"  To-morrow,"  Jeffro  said,  "  I  vill  get  out  from 
the  bank  my  money  —  I  have  not  touched  that  — 
and  send  to  her  vat  I  have.  It  may  be  she  has  saved 
a  little  bit.  Somehow  she  vill  come.  To-morrow 
I  vill  get  it,  as  soon  as  the  bank  is  open." 

I  knew  I  had  to  tell  him  —  I  knew  I  had  to  tell 
him  right  then.  "  Mr.  Jeffro  —  Mr.  Jeffro,"  I  said, 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  69 

u  you  can't.  You  can't  get  your  money.  The 
bank's  failed." 

He  looked  at  me,  not  understanding. 

"Vat  is  that?"  he  said.  "  '  Failed '—  for  a 
bank?" 

"  I  don't  know  what  it  is,"  I  told  him.  "  It's 
something  banks  can  do.  You  never  can  tell  when. 
And  this  one  has  done  it." 

"  But,"  he  cried,  "  vat  do  you  mean?  It  vas  the 
National  Bank!  This  nation  can  not  fail!  " 

"  This  much  of  it  has,"  I  says.  "  The  bank's  shut 
up  tight.  Everybody  that  had  money  in  it  has  lost 
it  —  unless  maybe  they  pay  back  to  each  one  just  a 
little  bit." 

He  stood  up  then  and  looked  at  me  as  if  I  were 
strange.  "  Then  this  too,"  he  says,  "  can  happen  in 
America.  And  the  things  I  see  all  winter  —  the 
soldiers  to  shoot  you  down?  " 

"  No,  no,"  I  says.     "  You  mustn't  think  — " 

u  I  do  not  think,"  says  Jeffro.  "  I  know.  I  have 
seen.  I  am  there  ven  it  happens.  And  more  that 
I  did  not  tell.  In  March  a  man  came  to  me  ven  I 
was  hungry,  and  tried  to  buy  my  vote.  Ven  I  un- 
derstood, I  struck  him  in  his  face,  just  the  same  as  if 
I  have  von.  But  I  saw  men  sell  their  vote,  and 
laugh  at  it.  And  now  I  understand.  You  throw 
dust  in  our  eyes,  free  fire-engines,  free  letter-carriers, 
free  this  and  free  that,  and  all  the  time  somebody 


70          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

must  be  laughing  somewhere  at  how  it  makes  us 
fools.  I  hate  America.  Being  free  here,  it  is  a 
lie !  " 

And  me,  I  set  still,  trying  to  think.  I  set  look- 
ing at  the  bright-colored  poster  that  Jeffro  had  found 
on  his  cow-shed  in  the  old  country,  and  I  was  trying 
to  think.  I  knew  that  a  great  deal  of  what  he'd 
said  was  true.  I  knew  that  folks  all  over  the  coun- 
try were  waking  up  and  getting  to  know  that  it  was 
true.  And  yet  I  knew  that  it  wasn't  all  the  truth. 
That  there  was  more,  and  that  something  had  got  to 
make  him  know.  But  what  was  going  to  do  that? 

Faint  and  high  and  quite  a  ways  off,  I  heard  a 
little  call.  It  wasn't  much  of  a  call,  but  when  an- 
other came  and  then  another,  it  set  my  heart  to  beat- 
ing and  the  blood  to  rushing  through  me  as  though  it 
was  trying  to  tell  me  something. 

I  stood  up  and  looked.  And  up  the  street  I  saw 
them  —  running  and  jumping,  shouting  little  songs 
and  laughing  all  the  way  —  the  children,  coming  out 
of  the  Friendship  Village  schoolhouse,  there  at  the 
top  of  the  hill.  And  in  a  minute  it  came  over  me 
that  even  if  I  couldn't  help  him,  there  was  some- 
thing to  do  that  mebbe  might  comfort  him  some,  just 
now,  when  he  was  needing  it. 

I  stepped  to  the  door,  and  up  by  the  locust-tree 
I  see  Joseph  coming.  I  could  pick  out  his  little  black 
head  and  his  bobbed  hair  and  his  red  cheeks.  And 
I  called  to  him. 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  71 

"  Joseph,  Joseph !  "  I  says.  "  You  come  over 
here  —  and  have  the  rest  come  too !  " 

He  came  running,  his  eyes  beginning  to  shine. 
And  the  others  came  running  and  followed  him, 
eager  to  know  what  was  what.  And  up  the  road  a 
piece  I  see  some  more  coming,  and  they  all  begun 
to  run  too. 

Joseph  ran  in  the  gate  ahead  of  everybody,  and 
past  me,  and  in  at  the  door  that  was  close  to  the  road. 
And  he  threw  away  his  book,  and  ran  to  his  father, 
and  flung  both  arms  around  his  neck.  And  the  rest 
all  came  pressing  up  around  the  door,  and  when 
they  see  inside,  they  set  up  a  shout: 

"  It's  the  Present-man!  It's  the  Present-man! 
He's  back  a'ready!" 

Because  I  guess  'most  every  one  of  them  there 
had  had  something  or  other  of  Jeffro's  making  for 
Christmas.  But  I'd  never  known  till  that  minute, 
and  neither  had  he,  that  they'd  ever  called  him  that. 
When  he  heard  it,  he  looked  up  from  Joseph,  where 
he  stood  holding  him  in  his  arms  almost  fierce,  and 
he  come  over  to  the  door.  And  the  children  pressed 
up  close  to  the  door,  shouting  like  children  will,  and 
the  nearest  ones  shook  his  hand  over  Joseph's  shoul- 
der. 

And  me,  all  of  a  sudden  I  shouted  louder'n  they 
did:  '  Who  you  glad  to  see  come  home?  " 

And  they  all  shouted  together,  loud  as  their  lungs : 
"  The  Present-man!  The  Present-man!  " 


72          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

And  then  they  caught  sight  of  Miss  Mayhew,  com- 
ing from  the  school,  and  they  all  ran  for  her,  to  tell 
her  the  news.  And  she  came  in  the  gate  to  shake 
hands  with  him.  And  then  in  a  minute  they  all 
trooped  off  down  the  road  together,  around  Miss 
Mayhew,  one  or  two  of  them  waving  back  at  him. 

Then  I  turned  round  and  looked  at  Jeffro. 

"  Why,  they  have  felt  —  felt  glad  to  see  me !  " 
he  says,  breathless.  And  back  to  his  face  came 
creeping  some  of  the  old  Jeffro  look. 

"Why,  they  are  glad,"  says  I.  "  We  all  are. 
We've  missed  you  like  everything  —  trudging  along 
with  your  toys." 

Joseph  wasn't  saying  a  word.  He  was  just  snug- 
gling up,  nosing  his  father's  elbow,  like  a  young 
puppy.  Jeffro  stood  patting  him  with  his  cracked, 
chapped  hand.  And  Jeffro  was  looking  down  the 
road,  far  as  he  could  watch,  after  the  children. 

"  I've  got  a  little  canned  stuff  there  in  the  cup- 
board for  your  suppers,"  I  says,  not  knowing  what 
else  to  say.  "  And  I  stuck  a  few  things  in  the 
ground  for  you  out  there,  that  are  coming  up  real 
nice  —  potatoes  and  onions  and  a  cabbage  or  two. 
And  they's  a  little  patch  of  corn  that'll  be  along 
by  and  by." 

All  of  a  sudden  Jeffro  turned  his  back  to  me  and 
walked  a  few  steps  away.  "A  garden?"  he  says, 
not  looking  round.  "A  little  garden?" 

"  Kind  of  a  one,"  I  told  him.     "  Such  as  it  is,  it's 


THE  STORY  OF  JEFFRO  73 

all  right  —  what  there  is  of  it.  And  Abigail  Ar- 
nold," I  says,  "  wants  you  should  make  her  an- 
other wooden  bridal  pair  for  the  cake  in  the  win- 
dow —  the  groom  to  the  other  one  is  all  specked  up. 
And  I  heard  her  say  you  could  set  some  of  your  toys 
there  in  her  front  case.  Oh  yes,  and  Mis'  Timothy 
Toplady's  got  a  clucking  hen  she's  been  trying  to 
hold  back  for  you,  and  she  says  you  can  pay  her  in 
eggs-" 

I  stopped,  because  Jeffro  frightened  me.  He 
wheeled  round  and  stood  looking  out  the  door  across 
the  pasture  opposite,  and  his  lips  were  moving.  I 
thought  maybe  he  was  figuring  something  with  them, 
and  I  kept  still.  But  he  wasn't  —  he  was  thinking 
with  them.  In  a  minute  he  straightened  up.  And 
his  face  —  it  wasn't  brave  or  confident  the  way  it 
had  been  once,  but  it  was  saying  a  thing  for  him  — 
a  nice  thing,  even  before  he  spoke. 

He  came  and  put  out  his  hand  to  me,  round  Jo- 
seph. "  My  friend,"  he  says,  "  I  vill  tell  you  what 
it  is.  Thes'  is  what  I  thought  America  was  like." 

Wasn't  that  queer,  when  I  understood  all  he  had 
hoped  from  America,  and  all  he  hadn't  found?  A 
lump  come  in  my  throat  —  not  a  sad  one  though ! 
But  a  glad  one.  And  oh,  the  difference  in  them 
lumps ! 

He  went  back  to  work  at  his  toys  again,  and  he  be- 
gan at  the  bottom,  a  whole  year  after  his  first  com- 


74          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

ing,  to  save  up  money  to  bring  over  his  wife  and 
the  little  ones.  And  it  wasn't  two  weeks  later  that 
I  went  there  one  night  and  saw  him  out  working  on 
the  hole  in  the  road  again. 

"  I  work  for  you  this  time,  though,"  he  said,  when 
he  see  I  noticed.  u  Thes'  I  do  not  for  America  — 
no !  I  do  it  for  you  and  for  thes'  village.  No  one 
else." 

And  I  thought,  while  I  watched  him  pounding 
away  at  the  dirt: 

"  Anybody  might  think  Friendship  Village  knows 
things  America  hasn't  found  out  yet  —  but  of  course 
that  can't  be  so." 


WHEN  NICK  NORDMAN  CAME  BACK 
HOME 

I  WAS  awful  nervous  about  going  up  to  meet  Nick 
Nordman.  It  had  been  near  thirty  years  since  I'd 
seen  him,  and  he'd  got  so  rich  that  one  house  and  one 
automobile  weren't  anything.  He  had  about  three 
of  each,  and  he  frisked  the  world  in  between  occupy- 
ing them.  Still,  when  he  wrote  to  me  that  he  was 
coming  back  to  visit  the  village,  I  made  up  my  mind 
that  I'd  be  there  to  welcome  him,  being  as  we  were 
boys  and  girls  in  school  together. 

It  was  a  nice  October  evening  when  I  started  out. 
When  I  came  down  through  town,  I  saw  the  council 
chamber  all  lit  up,  being  it  was  the  regular  meeting 
night.  And  sitting  in  there  I  saw  Silas  Sykes  and 
Timothy  Toplady  and  Eppleby  Holcomb  and  some 
more,  smoking  to  heaven  and  talking  to  each  other 
while  the  mayor  addressed  them.  I  wondered,  as  I 
went  along,  which  of  the  thirteen  hundred  things  we 
needed  in  the  village  they  were  talking  about.  I  con- 
cluded they  were  talking  about  how  to  raise  the 
money  to  do  any  one  of  them  —  some  years  away. 

In  the  middle  of  town  I  came  on  Lucy  Hackett. 
She  was  down  buying  her  vegetables;  she  always 

75 


76          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

bought  them  at  night,  because  then  they  give  her  a 
good  deal  for  her  money  and  some  cheaper.  Lucy 
was  forty-odd,  with  long  brown  hair,  braided  round 
and  round  her  head,  crown  after  crown.  She  was 
tall  and  thin,  with  long  arms,  but  a  slow,  graceful 
way  of  walking  and  of  picking  her  way,  holding  up 
her  old  work  skirt,  that  made  you  think  of  a  grand 
lady  moving  around.  And  she  had  lovely  dark  eyes 
that  made  you  like  her  anyway. 

"  Oh,  Lucy,"  I  says,  "  guess  who  I'm  up  here  to 
meet  —  Nick  Nordman." 

She  just  stared  at  me.  "  Nick  Nordman?  "  she 
says.  "  Coming  here?  " 

"  First  time  in  twenty  years,"  I  says,  and  went 
off,  with  her  face  a-following  me,  and  me  a-chiding 
myself  energetic :  What  was  the  matter  with  me  to 
spring  that  onto  her  all  of  a  sudden  that  way,  and 
clean  forget  that  her  and  Nick  used  to  keep  com- 
pany for  a  year  or  more  before  he  went  off  to  town? 

"Paper?  Paper,  Miss  Marsh?  As  soon's  we 
get  'em  off  the  train?  "  says  somebody.  And  there 
I  saw  from  four  to  six  little  boys,  getting  orders  for 
the  city  paper  before  the  train  had  come  in.  But  it 
was  just  whistling  down  by  the  gas  works,  and  I  was 
so  excited  I  dunno  if  I  answered  them. 

My  gracious,  what  do  you  s'pose?  On  the  back 
of  the  Dick  Dasher  accommodation  train  —  we 
called  it  that  because  Dick  Dasher  was  the  conductor 
—  came  rolling  in  a  special  car,  and  a  black  porter 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  77 

bounced  off  and  set  down  a  step,  and  out  of  the  car 
got  one  lonely,  solitary  man. 

"  Is  that  a  show  car  hitched  on  there,  or  what?  " 
I  says  to  Mis'  Sturgis,  that  got  off  the  train. 
'  That's  what  we  was  wondering,"  says  she. 

Dick  Dasher,  he  was  lifting  off  bundles  of  laundry 
and  stuff  that's  intrusted  to  him  to  bring  home  all 
along  the  line,  and  he  heard  me.  "  If  you're  to  meet 
somebody,  that's  the  man-you're-looking-for's  pri- 
vate car,"  says  he.  "  He's  the  only  other  one  off 
here." 

Land,  there  he  was !  As  soon  as  I  faced  the  man 
the  porter  had  bowed  off  the  step,  I  knew  him. 
Stockier,  redder  in  the  face,  with  blunt  gray  hair  and 
blunt  gray  mustache,  and  clothes  that  fit  him  like  a 
label  round  a  bottle  —  sure  as  could  be,  it  was  him! 

"  Well,  Nick!  "  I'd  been  going  to  say;  but  instead 
of  it  what  I  did  say  was,  "  Is  this  Mr.  Nordman?  " 

He  lifted  his  hat  in  the  hand  with  his  glove  on. 
"  It's  Calliope  Marsh,  isn't  it?"  says  he.  "/  am 
glad  to  see  you.  Mighty  good  of  you  to  meet  me, 
you  know." 

I  don't  know  how  it  was,  but  the  way  he  was  and 
the  way  he  spoke  shut  me  up  tighter  than  a  clamshell. 
It  had  never  entered  my  head  to  feel  embarrassed  or 
stiff  with  him  until  I  saw  him,  and  heard  him  being 
so  formal.  My  land,  he  looked  rich  and  acted  rich ! 
The  other  women  stood  there,  so  I  managed  to  in- 
troduce them.  "  You  meet  Mis'  Arnet.  You  meet 


78          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Mis'  Sturgis.  You  meet  Mis'  Hubbelthwait,"  I 
says.  "  Them  that  was  Hetty  Parker  and  Mamie 
Bain  and  Cassie  White  —  I  guess  you  remember 
them,  don't  you?  " 

"Perfectly!  Perfectly!"  says  he;  and  he  done 
his  heartiest,  it  seemed  to  me.  But  to  bow  quite 
low,  and  lift  his  hat  higher  and  higher  to  each  one  — 
well,  I  dunno.  It  wasn't  the  way  I  thought  it'd  be. 

"  I  thought  we'd  walk  down,"  I  says.  "  I  thought 
mebbe  you'd  like  to  see  the  town  — "  But  I  kind 
of  wavered  off.  All  of  a  sudden  the  town  didn't 
seem  so  much  to  me  as  it  had. 

"  By  all  means,"  says  he. 

But  just  then  there  was  above  six-seven  of  them 
little  boys  found  him.  They'd  got  their  papers  now 
and  they  were  bound  to  make  a  sale.  "Paper? 
Buy  a  paper?  Buy  a  newspaper,  mister?"  they 
says,  most  of  them  running  backward  in  their  bare 
feet  right  in  front  of  him. 

"  Sure,"  he  says,  "  I'll  buy  a  paper.  Give  me  one 
of  all  your  papers. 

"  Now  let's  see,"  he  says  then.  u  Where's  the 
pop-corn  wagon?  " 

There  wasn't  any.  None  of  the  boys  had  ever 
heard  of  one. 

"  No  pop-corn  wagon?  Bless  me,"  he  says,  "  you 
don't  mean  to  say  you  don't  have  a  circus  every  year 
—  with  pop-corn  wagons  and  — " 

A  groan  broke  out  from  every  boy.     "  No !  "  they 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  79 

says  in  chorus.  "  Aw,  it  ain't  comin'.  Pitcairn's 
wanted  to  show  here.  But  the  town  struck  'em  for 
high  license." 

Mr.  Nordman  looked  at  the  boys  a  minute.  Then 
he  rapped  his  cane  down  hard  on  the  platform. 
"  It's  a  burning  shame !  "  he  says  out,  indignant  and 
human.  "  Ain't  they  even  any  ice-cream  cones  in 
this  town?  "  he  cries. 

Oh,  yes,  there  was  them.  The  boys  set  up  a 
shout.  Mr.  Nordman  —  he  give  them  a  nickel 
apiece,  and  the  next  instant  the  platform  was  swept 
clean  of  every  boy  of  them.  And  him  and  me  begun 
walking  down  the  street. 

"  Bless  me,"  he  says.  "  What  a  nice  little  town 
it's  grown!  What  a  very  nice  little  town!  "  And 
the  way  he  said  it  shut  me  right  up  again. 

I  dunno  how  it  was,  but  this  was  no  more  the  way 
I'd  imagined  showing  Nick  Nordman  over  the  vil- 
lage than  anything  on  earth.  I'd  been  going  to  tell 
him  about  old  Harvey  Myers'  hanging  himself  in 
the  garret  we  were  then  passing,  but  I  hadn't  the 
heart  nor  the  interest. 

Just  as  we  got  along  down  to  the  main  block  of 
Daphne  Street,  the  council  meeting  was  out  and  Silas 
and  Eppleby  and  Timothy  Toplady  and  the  rest  came 
streaming  out  of  the  engine  house.  Mis'  Toplady 
and  Mame  Holcomb  were  sitting  outside,  waiting  for 
their  husbands,  and  so  of  course  I  marched  Mr. 
Nicholas  Nordman  right  up  to  the  lot  of  them  and 


8o          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

named  them  to  him.  Every  one  of  them  had  known 
him  over  twenty  years  before. 

Off  came  the  gray  hat,  and  to  each  one  of  the 
ladies  he  bowed  low,  and  he  says :  "  Delighted  — 
delighted  to  see  you  again.  Indeed  we  remember, 
don't  we?  And  Timothy!  Eppleby!  Silas!  I 
am  delighted." 

Then  there  was  a  long  pause.  We  all  just  stood 
there. 

Then  Silas,  as  the  chief  leading  citizen,  he  clears 
his  throat  and  he  says:  "  Do  you  —  ah  —  remain 
long?  "  I  don't  know  a  better  sample  of  what  Mr. 
Nicholas  Nordman's  manner  done  to  us  all.  "  Re- 
main!  "  Silas  never  said  "  remain  "  in  his  life  be- 
fore. Always,  always  he  would,  under  any  real 
other  circumstances,  have  said  "  stay." 

The  whole  few  minutes  was  like  that,  while  we  just 
stood  there.  And  perhaps  it  was  like  that  most  of 
all  in  the  minute  when  it  ought  to  have  been  like 
that  the  least.  This  was  when  Mr.  Nordman  told 
a  plan  he  had.  "  I  want  you  all,"  he  said,  "  and  a 
few  more  whom  I  well  remember,  to  do  me  the  honor 
to  lunch  with  me  to-morrow  in  my  car.  We  can  have 
a  fine  time  to  talk  over  the  —  ah  —  old  days." 

There  was  a  dead  pause.  I  guess  everybody  was 
figgering  on  the  same  thing;  finally  Eppleby  asked 
about  it.  "  Much  obliged,"  says  he.  "  What 
car?" 

"  My  private  car,"  says  Mr.  Nordman,  "  some- 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  81 

where  on  the  siding.  You'll  recognize  her.  She's 
gray." 

"  Much  obliged,"  "  Pleased,  I'm  sure,"  "  Pleased 
to  come,"  says  everybody. 

And  we  broke  up  and  he  walked  along  with  me. 
Halfway  down  the  block,  who  should  I  see  ahead  of 
me  but  Lucy  Hackett.  I  never  said  anything  till 
we  overtook  her.  When  I  spoke  she  wheeled  and 
flushed  up  like  a  girl,  and  put  out  her  hand  so  nice 
and  eager,  and  with  her  pretty  way  that  was  a  glad 
way  and  was  a  grand  lady  way  too. 

I  says:  "Mr.  Nordman,  you  meet  Miss  Lucy 
Hackett,  that  I  guess  you  can  remember  each  other." 

He  took  off  his  hat  and  -bowed.  "  Ah,  Miss 
Lucy,"  says  he,  "  this  is  a  pleasure.  How  good  to 
see  you  again!  " 

"  I'm  glad  to  see  you,  too,  Nick,"  she  says,  and 
walked  along  on  the  inside  of  the  walk  with  us,  just 
drooping! 

Yes,  you  might  as  well  have  tried  to  greet  a  foun- 
tain in  full  play  as  to  greet  him.  He  invited  her  to 
come  to  his  luncheon  next  day.  She  said  she  would, 
with  a  nice  little  catch  of  pleasure  in  her  tone;  and 
he  left  her  at  her  gate,  him  bowing  tremendous. 
And  it  was  the  same  gate  he  used  to  take  her  to  when 
they  were  boy  and  girl.  .  .  . 

He  said  the  same  kind  of  a  formal  good  night  to 
me  at  my  gate;  and  I  was  just  going  to  go  into  my 
house,  feeling  sick  and  lonesome  all  rolled  into  one, 


82          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

because  there  wasn't  a  mite  of  Nick  Nordman  about 
him  at  all;  but  all  of  a  sudden,  like  an  explosion  out 
of  a  clear  sky  and  all  points  of  the  earth,  there  came 
down  onto  us  the  most  tremendous,  outrageous 
racket  that  ever  blasted  a  body's  ears.  It  seemed 
to  come  from  sky,  earth,  air  and  sea,  at  one  and  the 
same  instants.  And  it  went  like  this : 


Yow!      Yow!      Yow! 

Who's all 

Mr.  N- 


And  then  there  was  a  great  burst  of  yelling,  and  the 
whole  seven  boys  came  dropping  out  of  trees  and 
scrambling  up  from  under  the  fence,  and  they  ran  off 
down  the  street,  still  yelling  about  him.  Seems  the 
ice-cream  cones  had  made  a  hit. 

Then  —  just  for  one  little  minute  —  I  saw  the 
real  Nick  Nordman  that  I  remembered.  His  face 
broke  into  a  broad,  pleased  grin,  and  he  shoved  his 
hat  onto  the  back  of  his  head,  and  he  slapped  his  leg 
so  that  you  could  hear  it.  "  Why,"  says  he,  "  the 
durn  little  kids!  " 

We  all  dressed  up  in  the  best  we  had  for  the 
luncheon.  Lucy  Hackett  come  for  me.  She  had 
on  a  clean,  pretty  print  dress,  and  she  looked  awful 
nice. 

"  Oh,  Lucy,"  I  says  to  her  right  off,  "  ain't  it  too 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  83 

bad  about  Nick?  He  ain't  no  more  like  he  use'  to 
be  than  a  motor  is  like  a  mule." 

Lucy,  she  flushed  up  instant.  "  I  thought,"  says 
she,  "  he  was  real  improved." 

"Land,  yes,  improved!"  I  says.  "Improved 
out  of  all  recognizing  him." 

She  staggered  me  some  by  giving  a  superior  smile. 
"  Of  course,"  she  says,  u  he's  all  city  ways  now.  Of 
course  he  is." 

Yes,  of  course  he  was.  I  thought  of  her  words 
over  and  over  again  during  that  lunch.  His  private 
car  had  a  little  table  fitted  in  most  every  seat  and  laid, 
all  white,  with  pretty  dishes  and  silver  and  flowers. 
Electric  fans  were  going  here  and  there.  The  lights 
were  lighted,  though  it  was  broad  day  and  broader. 
The  porter,  in  a  white  coat,  was  frisking  round  with 
ice  and  glasses.  But,  most  magnificent  of  all,  was 
Mr.  Nicholas  Nordman,  standing  in  the  middle  of 
the  aisle  in  pure  white  serge. 

"  So  pleased,"  says  he.  "  So  very  pleased.  Now 
this  is  good  of  you  all  to  come." 

I  s'pose  what  we  done  was  to  chat;  that,  I  figger, 
would  be  the  name  of  it.  But  when  he  set  us  all 
down  to  the  little  tables,  four  and  four,  a  deathlike 
silence  fell  on  the  whole  car.  It  was  hard  enough 
to  talk  anyhow.  Add  to  that  the  interestingness  of 
all  this  novelty,  and  not  one  of  us  could  work  up  a 
thing  to  say. 

Mr.  Nordman  took  the  minister  and  Lucy  Hackett 


84          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

and  me  to  his  table,  being  we  were  all  odd  ones,  and 
begun  to  talk  benevolent  about  the  improvements 
that  a  little  town  of  this  size  ought  to  have. 

"  I  s'pose  they  have  grand  parks  and  buildings  in 
the  cities,  Nick?  "  says  Lucy. 

"  Haven't  you  ever  been  to  see  them?  "  says  he  — 
oh,  so  kind ! 

"  Never,"  says  she.  "  But  I've  heard  about 
them." 

He  sat  staring  out  the  car  window  across  the  Pump 
pasture,  where  the  shadows  were  all  laying  nice. 
"  City  life  is  intensely  interesting,"  says  he.  "  In- 
tensely so." 

"  As  interesting  as  the  time  you  stole  Grandpa 
Toplady's  grapes?  "  I  says.  I  couldn't  help  it. 

He  tapped  on  the  table.  "  Let  us  be  in  order  for 
a  few  minutes,"  he  says.  He  needn't  of.  We  were 
in  order  already;  we  hadn't  been  anything  else.  No- 
body was  speaking  a  word  hardly.  But  everybody 
twisted  round  and  looked  at  him  as  he  got  onto  his 
feet. 

"  Ladies  and  gentlemen,"  he  says,  and  looked  at 
us  once  round.  "  I  have  summoned  you  here  for  a 
purpose.  On  this,  the  occasion  of  my  first  visit  back 
to  my  boyhood's  home,  I  feel  that  I  should  —  and, 
indeed,  I  most  earnestly  desire  to  —  mark  the  time 
by  some  small  token.  Therefore,  after  some  con- 
versation about  the  matter  during  the  forenoon,  and 
much  thought  before  my  coming,  I  have  decided  to 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  85 

set  aside  ten  thousand  dollars  from  to-day  to  be  used 
for  your  town  in  a  way  which  a  committee  —  of 
which  I  hope  that  you,  my  guests  of  the  day,  will 
be  appointed  members  —  may  decide.  For  park 
purposes,  playgrounds,  pavements  —  what  you  will; 
I  desire  to  make  this  little  acknowledgment  to  my 
native  town,  to  this  the  home  of  my  boyhood.  I 
thank  you." 

He  set  down  and,  after  a  minute,  everybody  burst 
out  and  spatted  their  hands. 

And  then  Silas  Sykes,  that  is  our  professional 
leading  citizen,  got  to  his  feet  and  accepted  in  the 
name  of  the  town.  Some  of  the  other  men  said  a 
little  about  the  needs  of  the  town;  and  Eppleby  Hoi- 
comb,  he  got  up  and  proposed  a  toast  to  the  host. 
And  by  that  time,  the  sun  had  got  around  consider- 
able and  it  was  blazing  hot  there  on  the  side  track, 
and  us  ladies  in  our  black  silks  begun  to  think,  long- 
ing, of  our  side  piazzas  and  our  palm-leaf  fans. 

We  filed  down  the  aisle  and  shook  the  hand  of 
Mr.  Nicholas  Nordman  and  thanked  him,  individual 
and  formal,  both  for  the  lunch  and  the  big  gift,  and 
got  out.  But  Lucy  Hackett  burst  out  talking,  with 
the  tears  in  her  eyes.  "Nick!"  she  says.  "  Oh, 
Nick,  it  was  wonderful !  Oh,  it  was  the  most  won- 
derful time  I  ever  had  in  my  life  —  the  luncheon 
with  everything  so  pretty  —  prettier'n  I  ever  saw 
things  before;  and  then  the  present  to  the  town. 
Ten  thousand  dollars !  Oh,  none  of  us  can  be  happy 


86          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

and  grateful  enough.  And  to  think  it's  you  that's 
done  it,  Nick  —  to  think  it's  you !  " 

"  Thank  you,  Miss  Lucy,"  says  he,  "  thank  you; 
you  are  very  good,  I'm  sure." 

But  I  noticed  that  he  wasn't  so  much  formal  now 
as  he  was  lifeless;  and  I  was  wondering  if  he  hadn't 
had  a  good  time  to  his  own  luncheon  party  or  what, 
when  I  heard  something  out  on  the  platform,  and 
then  there  come  a-walking  in  a  regular  procession. 
It  was  all  seven  of  the  small  boys  again,  and  from 
seven  to  fourteen  more  besides,  done  up  clean,  with 
shoes  on  and  here  and  there  a  collar. 

"  Is  it  time?  "  they  says. 

Nick  Nordman  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets 
and  grinned  down  on  them.  And  it  came  to  me 
to  be  kind  of  jealous  of  the  boys,  because  he  was 
with  them  just  the  way  he  ought  to  have  been  with 
us  —  and  wasn't.  But  he  was  going  off  that  night, 
with  his  car  to  be  hitched  onto  the  Through;  and 
there  wasn't  any  time  for  anybody  to  say  any  more, 
or  be  any  different.  So  Lucy  and  I  said  good-by  to 
him  and  left  him  there  with  the  boys,  dragging  out 
together  an  ice-cream  freezer  into  the  middle  of  the 
gray  private  car. 

I'd  just  got  the  door  locked  up  that  night  about 
nine  o'clock,  and  was  seeing  to  the  window  catches 
before  I  went  upstairs,  when  there  come  a  rap  to 
my  front  door. 

"  Who's  there?  "  says  I,  with  my  hand  on  the  bolt. 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  87 

"  It's  Nick  Nordman,  Calliope." 

"Land!"  says  I,  letting  him  in.  "I  thought 
you'd  gone  off  hitched  to  the  Through." 

"  I  was,"  he  says,  "  but  I  ain't.  I'm  going  to 
wait  till  five  in  the  morning.  And  I'm  going  to  talk 
over  something  with  you." 

Sheer  through  being  flabbergasted,  I  led  him 
past  the  parlor  and  out  into  the  dining  room  and  lit 
the  lamp  there.  I'd  been  sewing  there  and  things 
were  spread  on  every  chair.  Think  of  receiving  a 
millionaire  in  a  place  like  that !  But  he  never  seemed 
to  notice.  He  dropped  right  down  on  the  machine 
cover  that  was  standing  up  on  end.  And  he  put  his 
elbow  on  the  machine,  and  his  head  on  his  hand. 

"  Calliope,"  he  says,  "  it  ain't  the  way  I  thought 
it'd  be.  I  wanted  to  come  back  here,"  he  says.  "  I 
been  thinking  about  it  and  planning  on  it  for  years. 
But  it  ain't  like  what  I  thought." 

"  Well,"  I  says,  soothing,  "  of  course  that's  al- 
ways the  way  when  anybody  comes  back.  They's 
changes.  Things  ain't  the  same.  Folks  has  gone 
away  — " 

He  cut  me  short  off.  "  Oh,"  he  says,  "  it  ain't 
that.  I  expected  that.  There  were  enough  folks 
here.  It's  something  else.  When  I  went  away 
from  here  twenty  years  ago,  I  had  just  thirty-six 
dollars  to  go  on.  Now  I've  come  back,  and  I  don't 
mind  telling  you  that  I've  got  not  far  from  six  hun- 
dred thousand  invested.  Well,  from  the  time  I  went 


88          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

off,  I  used  to  plan  how  I'd  come  back  some  day,  just 
about  like  I  have  come  back,  and  see  folks,  and  give 
something  to  the  town,  and  give  a  lunch  like  I  did 
to-day.  I've  laid  awake  nights  planning  it.  And  I 
liked  to  think  about  it." 

"  Well,"  I  says,  "  and  you've  done  it." 

He  didn't  pay  attention.  "  You  remember,"  he 
says,  u  how  I  used  to  live  over  on  the  Slew  with 
my  uncle  in  the  house  that  wasn't  painted?  He'd 
got  together  a  cow  somehow,  and  I  use'  to  carry  the 
milk.  I  never  owned  a  pair  of  shoes  till  I  was  fif- 
teen and  earned  them,  and  I  never  went  to  school 
after  I  was  twelve.  And  when  I  went  to  the  city  I 
begun  at  the  bottom  and  lived  on  nothing  and  went 
to  night  school  and  got  through  the  whole  works 
up  to  pardner  for  them  I  used  to  sweep  out  for. 
When  I  got  my  first  ten  thousand  I  thought :  '  That's 
what  I'm  going  to  give  that  little  old  town  —  when 
I  get  enough  more.'  Well,  I've  done  it,  and  I  ain't 
got  no  more  satisfaction  out  of  it  than  if  I'd  thrown 
it  in  the  gutter.  And  that  " —  he  looked  at  me  sol- 
emn— u  was,"  says  he,  "  the  durndest,  stiffest  lunch- 
eon I  ever  et  at." 

"  Well,"  I  says,  "  of  course—" 

"  When  I  think,"  he  says,  "  of  the  way  I  planned 
it  —  with  the  men  all  coming  around  me,  and  slap- 
ping me  on  the  back,  and  being  glad  to  see  me  — " 

"  Oh,  Nick!  "  I  says.  "  Nick  Nordman!  Was 
that  what  you  wanted?  " 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  89 

He  looked  at  me  in  perfect  astonishment. 
"  Why,"  says  he,  "  ain't  that  what  anybody  wants?  " 

I  rose  right  up  on  my  feet  and  I  went  over  and 
put  out  my  hand  to  him.  "  Why,  Nick,"  I  says, 
"  don't  you  see?  We  was  afraid  of  you.  /  was 
afraid  of  you.  I  froze  right  up  and  give  up  telling 
you  about  folks  hanging  themselves  and  all  sorts  of 
interesting  things  because  I  thought  you  wouldn't 
care.  Why,  they  don't  know  you  care !  " 

"Don't  know  I  care?"  says  he.  "But  ain't  I 
showed  'em  —  ten  thousand  dollars'  worth?  " 

"  Oh,"  I  says,  "  that  way!  Yes,  they  know  that 
way.  In  dollars  they  know ;  but  they  don't  know  in 
feelings.  It's  them,"  I  says,  "  that  counts."  I  set 
down  by  him,  right  on  a  pile  of  my  new  sewing. 
"  Look  here,"  I  says,  "  Nick  Nordman,  if  that's  the 
way  you  feel  about  coming  back  and  about  the  vil- 
lage, let's  you  and  me  fix  up  some  way  to  make  folks 
know  you  feel  that  way." 

His  face  lit  up.     "  How?  "  says  he,  doubting. 

I  thought  a  minute.  I  don't  know  why  it  was,  but 
all  at  once  there  flashed  into  my  head  the  way  he 
had  been  with  the  boys,  and  the  way  the  boys  had 
been  to  him ;  that  was  what  he  was  wanting,  and  that 
was  what  had  been  lacking,  and  that  was  what  he 
didn't  know  how  to  make  come.  And  he  was  lone- 
some for  it. 

"  It  ought  to  be,"  says  I,  feeling  my  way  in  my 
own  head,  "  some  way  that'll  make  folks  —  Oh, 


90          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 
Nick,"  I  says,  jumping  up,  "  I  know  the  very  thing!  " 

Pitcairn's  Circus  that  wintered  not  twenty  miles 
from  us,  and  that  had  got  so  big  and  successful  that 
it  hadn't  been  to  Friendship  Village  before  in  twenty 
years !  And  this  year,  when  they'd  wanted  to  come, 
the  council  had  put  the  license  so  high  that  they  re- 
fused it.  And  yet,  one  morning,  we  woke  up  to  find 
the  town  plastered  up  and  down  with  the  big  flaming 
bill  posters  of  Pitcairn's  Circus  itself.  The  town 
had  all  it  could  do  to  believe  in  its  own  good  luck. 
But  there  was  no  room  to  doubt.  There  they  were : 

BALLET  OF  TWELVE  HUNDRED 

TREMENDOUS  PAGEANT  AND  SPECTACLE  OF 
ESTHER,  THE  BEAUTIFUL  QUEEN 

MAGNIFICENT  COSTUMES,  REGAL  WOMEN, 

GORGEOUS   JEWELS,    DIVERTING  DANCERS, 

SOLOS   AND   ENSEMBLES 


A  HUNDRED  TRAINED  RIDERS, 

A  HUNDRED  ACROBATS,  A  HUNDRED 

ANIMALS  FROM  THE  HEART  OF  THE 

WILD  HILLS 

ANIMALS  TRAINED ANIMALS  SAVAGE  — 

ANIMALS  WONDERFUL 

GIGANTIC  STREET  PARADE 

FREE!  FREE!  FREE! 

The  whole  town  planned  to  turn  out.  There  was 
to  be  no  evening  performance,  and  I  schemed  to  have 
us  all  take  our  lunch  —  a  whole  crowd  of  us  —  and 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  91 

go  over  to  the  Pump  pasture  right  from  the  parade, 
and  spread  it  under  the  big  maple,  and  see  the  sights 
while  we  et.  I  broached  it  to  Mis'  Toplady  and 
Timothy  and  Eppleby  and  Mame  Holcomb  and 
Postmaster  and  Mis'  Sykes,  and  some  more  —  Mis' 
Arnet  and  Mis'  Sturgis  and  Mis'  Hubbelthwait;  and 
they,  all  of  them,  and  Lucy  and  me,  fell  to  planning 
on  who'd  take  what,  and  running  over  to  each  other's 
houses  about  sweet  pickles  and  things  we  hadn't 
thought  of,  and  we  had  a  real  nice  old-fashioned 
time. 

I'll  never  forget  the  day.  It  was  one  of  the  regu- 
lar circus  days,  bright  and  blue  and  hot.  Lucy  Hack- 
ett  and  I  went  down  to  see  the  parade  together;  and 
we  watched  it,  as  a  matter  of  course,  from  the  win- 
dow where  I'd  watched  circus  parades  when  I  was 
a  little  girl.  The  horses,  the  elephants,  the  cages 
closed  and  the  cages  opened,  the  riders,  the  bands, 
the  clowns,  the  calliope  —  that  I  was  named  for,  be- 
cause a  circus  with  one  come  to  town  the  day  I  was 
born  —  had  all  passed  when,  to  crown  and  close  the 
whole,  we  saw  coming  a  wagon  of  the  size  and  like 
we  had  not  often  beheld  before. 

It  was  red,  it  had  flags,  pennons,  streamers,  fes- 
toons, balloons.  Continually  up  from  it  went  day- 
light firecrackers.  From  the  sides  of  it  fell  colored 
confetti.  And  it  was  filled,  not  with  circus  folks, 
dressed  gorgeous,  but  with  boys.  And  we  knew 
them!  Laughing,  jigging,  frantic  with  joy  —  we 


92          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

saw  upward  of  a  hundred  Friendship  Village  boys. 
As  the  wagon  passed  us  and  we  stared  after  it,  sud- 
denly the  clamor  of  shouting  inside  it  took  a  kind  of 
form.  We  begun,  Lucy  and  I,  to  recognize  some- 
thing. And  what  was  borne  back  to  us  perfectly 
clamorous  was : 


Yow!      Yow!      Yow! 

Who's all 

Mr.  N- 


"  What  in  time  are  they  yelling?  "  says  a  woman 
at  the  next  window. 

"  Some  stuff,"  says  somebody  else. 

Lucy  and  I  just  looked  at  each  other.  Lucy  was 
looking  wild.  "  Calliope,"  says  she,  "  how'd  they 
come  to  yell  that  —  that  that  they  said?  " 

"  Oh,  I  dunno,"  I  says  serene;  "  I  could  yell  that 
too  —  on  general  principles.  Couldn't  you?"  I 
says  to  her. 

And  Lucy  blushed  burning,  rosy,  fire  red  —  on 
general  principles,  I  suppose. 

We  were  all  to  meet  at  the  courthouse  with  our 
lunches  and  go  right  out  to  the  Pump  pasture.  The 
tents  were  up  already,  flags  were  flying  every  which 
way,  and  folks  were  running  all  over,  busy. 

"  Like  somebody  was  giving  a  party,"  I  says. 

Lucy  never  said  a  word.  She'd  gone  along,  kind 
of  breathless,  all  the  way  down.  All  us  that  know 
each  other  best  were  there.  And  we  were  dying  to 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  93 

get  into  each  other's  lunches  and  see  what  each  other 
had  brought.  So  Jimmy  Sturgis  went  to  building 
fire  for  the  coffee,  and  Eppleby  went  off  for  water, 
and  Silas  Sykes,  that  don't  like  to  do  much  work,  he 
says : 

"  Timothy,  supposing  we  go  along  down  and  buy 
all  our  tickets  and  avoid  the  rush?  " 

We  let  them  go,  and  occupied  ourselves  spreading 
down  the  cloth,  and  cutting  up  cake  and  veal  loaf, 
and  opening  up  pickles  and  jell.  The  maple  shade 
came  down  nice  on  the  cloth,  and  appetizing  little 
picnic  smells  of  potato  salad  and  other  things  begun 
getting  out  around,  and  the  whole  time  was  cozy 
and  close  up  to.  We  were  just  disposing  the  deviled 
eggs  in  a  mound  in  the  middle,  when  Silas  Sykes  and 
Timothy  come  fair  running  up  the  slope. 

"  My  dum!  "  says  Silas.  "  They  won't  leave  us 
buy  no  tickets.  They  say  the  show  is  free." 

"  Free!  "  says  most  everybody  but  me  in  chorus. 

They  say  they  ain't  no  ticket  wagon,  and  they 
ain't  going  to  be,"  says  Silas.  '  W7hat  you  going  to 
make  out  that?  " 

"  Blisterin'  Benson!"  says  Timothy  Toplady. 
"  What  I  think  is  this,  they're  kidding  us." 

Lucy  stood  opening  up  a  little  bag  she  had. 
"  Here's  one  of  the  slips  they  threw  round  this 
morning,"  she  says;  "  I  dunno  — " 

She  had  it  out  and  we  studied  it.  We'd  all  seen 
them  blowing  round  the  streets,  but  nobody  had  paid 


94          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

any  attention.     She  held  it  out  and  they  all  stared  at 
it: 

FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

IS  INVITED  TO  COME  TO  THE  CIRCUS 

THIS  AFTERNOON 

FREE 

NO  TICKETS  ON  SALE 
FREE  ADMISSION 

FOR 
FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  My  gracious,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  I  never  heard 
of  such  a  thing  since  the  world  began." 

"  Land,  land!  "  says  Mis'  Toplady.  "  But  what 
does  it  mean?  " 

"  What  does  it  mean?  "  says  Silas  Sykes.  u  What 
are  we  all  being  a  party  to?  " 

"  I  guess  it's  who  are  we  being  a  party  to,  Silas," 
I  says,  mild. 

They  all  looked  at  me.  And  then  they  looked 
where  I  was  looking,  and  I  was  looking  at  something 
hard.  Coming  out  of  the  main  tent  was  a  mass  of 
struggling,  wriggling,  dancing  humanity  —  little  hu- 
manity —  in  short,  the  boys  that  had  rode  in  the  big 
wagon.  And  walking  in  the  midst  of  them  was  a 
man. 

At  first  not  even  I  recognized  him.  He  had  his 
coat  off,  and  his  collar  was  turned  in,  his  hat  was  on 
the  back  of  his  head,  and  he  was  smiling  throughout 
his  whole  face,  which  was  red. 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  95 

"  Look-at!  "  says  I.  "  I  guess  that's  who  we're 
the  party  to  —  all  of  us." 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  Silas  says  again. 

u  I  mean,"  says  I,  "  that  Nick  Nordman's  had 
this  whole  circus  come  here  to  the  village  and  give 
it  to  us  free.  And  I  say,  let's  us  rush  down  there 
and  drag  him  up  here  to  eat  with  us !  " 

It  came  to  them  so  sudden  that  they  all  moved  off 
like  one  man,  and,  as  we  started  together,  not  caring 
who  stole  the  whole  lunch  that  we  left  laying  idle 
under  the  tree,  I  turned  and  took  a  look  at  Lucy. 

Land,  she  looked  as  I  haven't  seen  her  look  in 
twenty  years !  Her  head  was  back,  her  eyes  were 
bright,  her  face  was  bright,  and  she  didn't  know  one 
of  us  was  there.  She  just  went  down  the  slope,  run- 
ning. 

We  came  on  him  as  he  was  distributing  nickels 
destined  for  the  peanut  man  that  had  just  got  his 
wagon  going,  savory.  Nick  didn't  see  us  till  we 
were  right  there,  and  then  the  nicest  shamefaced 
look  come  over  him,  and  he  threw  the  rest  of  the 
nickels  among  the  boys  and  left  them  scrambling,  and 
met  us. 

"Nick  Nordman!  Is  this  your  doings?"  Silas 
plumped  it  at  him,  accusing. 

"  Gosh,  no !  "  says  Nick,  grinning  like  a  schoolboy. 
"  It's  the  kids'  doin's." 

And  when  a  millionaire  can  say  "  Gosh  "  like  he 
said  it,  you  can't  feel  remote  from  him.  Nobody 


96          PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

could.  Oh,  how  we  talked  at  him,  all  round,  a  good 
many  at  a  time.  And  I  think  everything  there  was 
to  say,  we  said  it.  Anyway,  I  can't  think  of  any  ex- 
clamation to  speak  of  that  we  left  unexclaimed. 

We  all  streamed  up  the  slope,  Silas  near  walking 
backward  most  of  the  way  to  take  in  the  full  magni- 
tude of  it.  We  sat  down  round  the  potato  salad 
and  the  deviled  eggs  and  the  veal  loaf,  beaming. 
And  it  made  a  real  nice  minute. 

Oh,  and  it  was  no  time  till  we  got  to  living  over 
the  old  days.  And  it  was  no  time  till  Timothy  and 
Eppleby  were  rolling  over,  recalling  this  and  bring- 
ing back  that.  It  was  no  time  at  all  till  every  one 
of  us  was  back  twenty-five  to  thirty  years,  and  telling 
about  it.  And  Lucy,  that  I'd  maneuvered  should  sit 
by  Nick,  I  caught  her  looking  across  at  me  kind  of 
superior,  and  as  if  she  could  have  told  me,  all  the 
while,  that  something  or  other  was  so ! 

"  Let's  us  drink  him  a  toast,"  says  Timothy  Top- 
lady  when  we  got  through.  "  Look-at  here :  To 
Nicholas  Nordman,  the  big  man  of  Friendship  Vil- 
lage." 

"  Yes,  sir!  "  says  Silas  Sykes.  "  And  to  Nicholas 
Nordman,  that's  give  us  ten  thousand  dollars  and  a 
circus !  " 

"  No,  sir !  "  says  Eppleby  Holcomb,  sudden. 
"  None  of  them  things.  Let's  us  drink  just  to  Nick 
Nordman,  that's  come  back  home !  "  He  up  with 
his  hand,  and  it  came  down  on  Nick  Nordman's 


WHEN  NICK  CAME  HOME  97 

shoulder  with  a  sound  you  could  have  heard  all 
acrost  the  grounds. 

And  as  he  did  that,  just  for  a  fraction  of  nothing, 
Nick  Nordman  met  my  eyes.  And  we  both  knew 
what  we  both  knew. 

Just  then  the  band  struck  up,  and  the  people  were 
already  pouring  in  the  pasture,  so  we  scrabbled 
things  up  and  all  started  for  the  tent.  Nick  was 
walking  with  Lucy. 

"  Lucy,"  I  heard  him  say,  "  you  look  near  enough 
like  you  used  to,  for  you  to  be  you !  " 

She  looked  like  a  girl  as  she  answered  him.  '  You 
are  you,  Nick,"  she  says,  simple  and  neat  and  direct. 

And  me  —  I  walked  along,  feeling  grand.  I  kind 
of  felt  what  all  of  us  was  feeling,  and  what  every- 
body was  going  to  feel  down  there  in  the  big  tent, 
when  they  knew.  But  far,  far  more,  I  sensed  the 
thing  that  Nick  Nordman,  walking  there  with  us, 
with  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  boys  all  waiting  to 
sit  down  side  of  him  at  his  circus  —  the  thing  that 
Nick  Nordman  had  found  out. 

"  God  bless  you,  Calliope,"  says  he,  when  he  got  a 
chance. 

"Oh!"  I  says.  •"  He  has.  He  has!  He's 
made  folks  so  awful  nice  —  when  they  just  let  it 
show  through!  " 


BEING  GOOD  TO  LETTY  * 

"  THE  poor  little  thing,"  says  I.  "  Well,  mustn't 
we  be  good  to  her?  " 

"  Mustn't  we?  "  says  Mis'  Fire  Chief  Merriman, 
wiping  her  eyes. 

"Must  we  not?"  says  Mis'  Silas  Sykes  —  that 
would  correct  your  grammar  if  the  house  was  on  fire. 

My  niece's  daughter  Letty  had  lost  her  father  and 
her  mother  within  a  year,  and  she  was  coming  to 
spend  the  summer  with  me. 

"  She's  going  to  pick  out  the  style  monument  she 
wants  here  in  town,"  I  says,  "  and  maybe  buy  it." 

"  Poor  thing!  That'll  give  her  something  to  put 
her  mind  on,"  says  Mis'  Sykes. 

George  Fred  come  in  just  then  to  fill  my  wood- 
box —  his  father  was  bound  he  should  be  named 
George  and  his  mother  hung  out  for  Fred,  so  he  got 
both  onto  him  permanent.  He  was  going  to  busi- 
ness college,  and  choring  it  for  near  the  whole  town. 
He  used  to  swallow  his  supper  and  rush  like  mad 
from  wood-box  to  cow  all  over  the  village.  Nights 
when  I  heard  a  noise,  I  never  thought  it  was  a  bur- 
glar any  more.  I  turned  over  again  and  thought  : 

1  Copyright,   1914,  Woman's  Home  Companion. 


BEING  GOOD  TO  LETTY  99 

"  That's  George  Fred  cutting  somebody's  grass." 
I  never  see  a  man  more  bent  on  getting  himself  edu-i 
cated. 

"  George  Fred,"  I  says,  "  my  grandniece  Letty  is 
coming  to  live  with  me.  She's  lost  her  folks.  I 
thought  we'd  kind  of  try  to  be  good  to  her." 

"  Trust  me,"  says  George  Fred.  "  My  cousin 
Jed,  he  lost  his  folks  too.  I  can  tell  her  about  him." 

The  next  day  Letty  came.  I  hadn't  seen  her  for 
years.  My  land !  when  she  got  off  the  train,  I  never 
saw  plainer.  She  was  a  nice  little  thing,  but  plain 
eyes,  plain  nose,  plain  mouth,  and  her  hair  —  that 
was  less  than  plain.  But  she  was  so  smiling  and  so 
gentle  that  the  plain  part  never  bothered  me  a  min- 
ute. 

"  Letty,"  says  I,  u  welcome  home."  Mis'  Merri- 
man  and  Mis'  Sykes  had  gone  to  the  depot  with  me. 

u  Welcome  home,  child,"  says  Mis'  Merriman, 
and  wiped  her  eyes !  Mis'  Merriman  is  human,  but 
tactless. 

"  Welcome  home,  you  poor  thing,"  says  Mis' 
Sykes,  and  she  sniffed.  Everything  Mis'  Sykes  does 
she  ought  to  have  picked  out  to  do  the  way  she  didn't. 

But  Letty,  she  took  it  serene  enough.  While  we 
were  getting  her  trunk,  Mis'  Sykes  whispered  to  me : 

"  Are  you  sure  she's  the  right  niece?  She  ain't 
got  on  a  stitch  of  mourning." 

Sure  enough,  she  hadn't.  She  wore  a  little  blue 
dress. 


ioo        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Like  enough  she  couldn't  afford  it,"  says  Mis' 
Merriman.  And  we  thought  that  must  be  it. 

They  were  both  to  stay  for  supper,  and  they'd  each 
brought  a  little  present  for  my  niece.  When  she 
opened  them,  one  was  a  black-edged  handkerchief 
and  the  other  was  a  package  of  mixed  flower-seeds 
to  plant  next  spring  in  her  cemetery  lot.  Mis'  Sykes 
and  Mis'  Merriman  were  both  ready  to  cry  all  the 
while  she  untied  them.  But  Letty  smiled,  serene, 
and  thanked  them,  serene  too,  and  put  a  pink  aster 
from  the  table  in  her  dress,  and  said,  couldn't  we  go 
out  and  look  at  my  flowers?  And  we  went,  Mis' 
Sykes  and  Mis'  Merriman  folding  up  their  handker- 
chiefs and  exchanging  surprised  eyebrows. 

At  the  back  door  we  came,  plain  in  the  face,  on 
George  Fred,  whittling  up  my  shavings. 

'  Two  baskets  of  shavings,  Miss  Marsh,  or  one?  " 

u  I  guess,"  says  I,  "  you'll  earn  your  education  bet- 
ter if  you  bring  me  in  two." 

George  Fred  never  smiled.  "  I  ain't  earning  my 
education  any  more,  Miss  Marsh,"  he  says.  "  I've 
give  it  up.  I  can't  make  it  go  —  not  and  chore  it." 

"  Then  you  can't  be  a  bookkeeper,  George  Fred?  " 
I  says. 

"  I've  took  a  job  delivering  for  the  post-office 
store." 

'  Tell  me  about  it,  won't  you?  "  says  Letty. 

George  Fred  told  her  a  little  about  it,  whittling  my 
shavings. 


BEING  GOOD  TO  LETTY  101 

"  There  ain't  enough  cows  and  grass  and  wood- 
boxes  in  the  village  to  make  it  go,  seems  though,"  he 
ends  up. 

Then  he  rushed  into  the  house  with  my  stuff,  and 
headed  for  the  Sykes's  cow  that  we  could  hear  low- 
ing. 

We  talked  about  George  Fred  while  we  looked 
at  the  flowers,  Letty  all  interested  in  both  of  them, 
and  then  we  came  back  and  sat  on  the  front  porch. 

"  Dear  child,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  wouldn't  it  be  a 
comfort  to  you,  now  that  you're  among  friends,  to 
talk  about  your  folks?  What  was  it  they  died  of? 
Was  they  sick  long?  " 

Letty  looked  over  to  her,  sweet  and  serene. 

"  Beautiful  things  happened  while  they  were  sick," 
she  said.  "  A  little  child  across  the  street  used  to 
come  every  morning  with  a  flower  or  a  fresh  egg. 
Then  there  was  an  -old  man  who  picked  every  rose 
in  his  garden  and  sent  them  in.  And  a  club  there 
hired  a  singer  who  was  at  the  theater  to  come  and 
serenade  them,  just  a  few  days  before.  Oh,  so  many 
beautiful  things  happened!  " 

Mis'  Sykes  and  Mis'  Merriman  sat  still.  This 
isn't  the  way  we  talk  about  sickness  in  the  village. 
We  always  tell  symptoms  and  treatments  and  pain 
and  last  words  and  funeral  preparations,  right  up 
to  the  time  the  hearse  backs  up  to  the  door. 

"  She  acts  the  queerest,  to  me,  for  a  mourner," 
says  Mis'  Sykes,  when  she  went  for  her  shawl. 


102         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Next  morning  we  went  down,  Letty  and  me,  to 
pick  out  the  monument.  Letty,  she  priced  them,  and 
then  she  figured  some  on  a  card.  Then  she  walked 
over  and  priced  some  more  things,  and  then  she  came 
out.  I  s'posed  she  was  going  to  think  about  it. 

u  Didn't  she  cry  when  she  picked  out  the  monu- 
ment?" says  Mis'  Sykes  to  me  over  the  telephone 
that  noon. 

"  I  didn't  see  her,"  says  I,  truthful. 

That  night,  after  he  got  the  last  cow  milked,  I  see 
George  Fred,  in  his  best  clothes,  coming  in  our  front 
gate.  He  was  coming,  I  see,  to  do  what  I  said  — 
help  be  good  to  Letty  and  cheer  her  up. 

"  Miss  Letty,"  says  he,  "  I  know  just  how  you  feel. 
My  cousin  Jed,  he  lost  his  folks  a  year  ago.  They 
took  down  with  the  typhoid,  and  they  suffered  fright- 
ful—" 

"  I'm  so  sorry,  Mr.  Fred,"  says  Letty. 

I  explained.  "  Fred,"  says  I,  "  is  his  other  front 
name.  His  final  name  is  Backus." 

She  colored  up  pretty,  and  went  right  on  —  it  was 
curious:  she  hadn't  been  with  me  twenty-four  hours 
hardly,  and  yet  she  didn't  look  a  bit  plain  to  me  now. 

"  Mr.  Backus,"  Letty  says,  "  I've  been  thinking. 
Miss  Marsh  and  I  have  got  a  little  money  we're  not 
using.  Don't  you  want  to  borrow  it,  and  keep  on 
at  business  college,  and  pay  us  back  when  you  can?  " 

"  Gosh !  "  says  George  Fred. 


BEING  GOOD  TO  LETTY  103 

If  I  hadn't  been  aiming  to  be  a  lady,  I  dunno  what 
I  might  have  said  similar. 

They  talked  about  it,  and  then  George  Fred  went 
off,  walking  some  on  the  ground  and  some  in  the  air. 
"  Letty !  "  says  I,  then,  "  where  in  this  world — " 

"  Why,"  says  Letty,  "  I'm  going  to  get  just  head- 
stones instead  of  a  monument  —  and  leave  that  boy 
be  a  bookkeeper  instead  of  a  delivery  boy.  Father 
and  mother  — "  it  was  the  only  time  I  heard  her  catch 
her  breath  sharp  — "  would  both  rather.  I  know  it." 

Before  breakfast  next  morning,  I  ran  over  to  Mis' 
Sykes's  and  Mis'  Merriman's,  and  told  them. 

"  Like  enough  she  done  something  better  than 
buy  mourning,  too,"  says  Mis'  Merriman. 

It  was  the  first  and  only  time  in  my  life  I  ever  see 
Mis'  Silas  Sykes's  eyes  fill  up  with  tears. 

"  Why,    my   land,"    she   says,    "  she's   using  her 


sorrow." 


And  all  of  a  sudden,  the  morning  and  the  world 
meant  something  more.  And  Letty,  that  we  were 
going  to  be  so  good  to,  had  brought  us  something 
like  a  present. 


SOMETHING  PLUS  * 

I  LAID  the  letter  up  on  the  clock-shelf  where  I  could 
see  it  while  I  did  my  dishes.  I  needed  it  there  to 
steady  me.  I  didn't  have  to  write  my  answer  till 
after  dinner,  because  it  wouldn't  go  out  until  the 
four  o'clock  mail  anyway.  I  kind  of  left  the  situa- 
tion lie  around  me  all  the  morning  so  I  could  sense  it 
and  taste  it  and,  you  might  say,  be  steeped  in  it,  and 
get  so  I  could  believe. 

Me  —  a  kind  of  guest  housekeeper  for  six  months 
in  a  beautiful  flat  in  the  city  —  with  two  young  mar- 
ried folks  and  a  little  baby  to  amuse  myself  with, 
and  the  whole  world  sitting  around  me,  expansive, 
and  waiting  for  me  to  enjoy  it.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
Golden  Plan  folks  always  think  is  going  to  open  up 
for  them  had  really  opened  now  for  me. 

How  I  kept  from  baking  my  doughnuts  and  fry- 
ing my  sponge-cakes  in  lard,  I  dunno,  but  I  d:d  — 
sheer  through  instinct,  I  guess.  And  then  I  wrote 
my  letter  and  took  it  down  to  the  post-office.  Go? 
Wouldn't  I  go  ?  My  letter  just  said : 

"  Ellen  dear,  you  ridiculous  child,  did  you  think  I  could 
wobble  for  a  single  second?  I'd  made  up  my  mind  before 

l  Copyright,    1916,   Pictorial  Review. 

104 


SOMETHING  PLUS  105 

I  got  down  the  first  page.  I'll  be  there  Monday  night.  Do 
you  care  if  I  wear  your  table-spread  for  dress-up,  when  I 
get  there?  All  I've  got  is  everyday  —  or  not  so  much  so. 
And  for  your  wanting  me,  I'll  say  thank  you  when  I  get 
there.  CALLIOPE." 

On  my  way  to  mail  my  letter  I  came  on  Mis'  Top- 
lady  and  Mis'  Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss,  down- 
town to  get  something  for  supper.  And  I  told  them 
all  about  it. 

Mis'  Toplady  hunched  her  shawl  farther  up  her 
back  and  sighed  abundant. 

"Ain't  that  just  grand,  Calliope?"  says  she. 
*  To  think  you're  going  to  do  something  you  ain't 
been  doing  all  your  days." 

That  was  the  point,  and  she  knew  it. 

"  I  says  to  Timothy  the  other  night,"  she  went  on, 
u  I  says,  '  Don't  you  wish  I  had  something  to  tell  you 
about,  or  you  had  something  to  tell  me  about,  that  we 
both  of  us  didn't  know  by  heart,  forward  and 
back?'" 

"  Eppleby  and  me,  too,"  says  Mis'  Holcomb,  "  I 
wish  to  the  land  we  could  do  something  —  or  be 
something  —  that  would  give  a  body  something  to 
kind  of  —  relate  to  each  other." 

"  I  know,"  I  says.  "  Husbands  and  wives  is  aw- 
ful simultaneous,  I  always  think." 

But  I  didn't  say  anything  more,  being  I  wasn't 
married  to  one ;  and  they  didn't  say  anything  more, 
being  they  was. 


io6        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Mis'  Holcomb  waved  her  cheese  at  me,  cheerful. 

"  Be  gay  for  us !  "  says  she,  and  then  went  home 
to  cook  supper  for  her  hungry  family. 

And  so  did  I,  wishing  with  all  my  heart  that  the 
two  of  them  —  that  hadn't  seen  over  the  rim  of 
home  in  thirty  years  —  could  have  had  my  chance. 

When  I  got  to  the  city  that  night  it  was  raining  — 
rather,  it  was  past  raining  and  on  up  to  pouring. 
So  I  got  in  a  taxi  to  go  up  to  Ellen's  —  a  taxi  that 
was  nothing  but  an  automobile  after  all,  in  spite  of 
its  foreign  name,  ending  in  a  letter  that  no  civilized 
name  ought  to  end  in.  And  never,  never,  not  if  I 
live  till  after  my  dying  day,  will  I  forget  my  first 
look  at  that  living-room  of  theirs  —  in  the  apartment 
building,  as  big  as  a  ship,  and  as  lighted  up  as  our 
church  at  Christmas-time,  which  was  where  Ellen 
and  Russell  lived. 

A  pretty  maid  let  me  in.  I  remember  I  went  in 
by  her  with  my  eyes  on  her  white  embroidery  cap, 
perked  up  on  her  head  and  all  ironed  up,  saucy  as  a 
blue  jay's  crest. 

"  Excuse  me,"  I  says  to  her  over  my  shoulder, 
"  I've  read  about  them,  but  yours  is  the  first  one  I 
ever  saw.  My  dear,  you  look  like  a  queen  in  a  new 
starched  crown." 

She  was  an  awful  stiff  little  thing — 'most  as  stiff 
as  her  head-piece.  She  never  smiled. 

"  What  name  ?  "  she  says,  though  —  and  I  see  she 
was  friendlier  than  I'd  thought. 


SOMETHING  PLUS  107 

"  Why,  mine's  Calliope  Marsh,"  I  says,  hearty. 
"What's  yours?" 

She  looked  so  funny  —  I  guess  not  many  paid  her 
much  attention. 

"  Delia,"  she  says.  "  You're  expected,"  she  says, 
and  opened  the  inside  door. 

The  room  was  long  and  soft  and  wine-colored, 
with  a  fire  burning  in  the  fireplace,  and  more  lamps 
than  was  necessary,  but  that  altogether  didn't  make 
much  more  light  than  one,  only  spread  it  out  more. 
The  piano  was  open,  and  there  was  a  vase  of  roses 
—  in  Winter !  They  seemed  to  have  them,  I  found 
out  later,  as  casual  as  if  there  was  a  combined  wed- 
ding and  funeral  in  the  house  all  the  time.  But 
they  certainly  made  a  beautiful  picture. 

But  all  this  I  sort  of  took  in  out  of  my  eyes'  four 
corners,  while  the  rest  of  me  looked  at  what  was  be- 
fore the  fire. 

A  big,  low-backed  chair  was  there,  as  fat  and  soft 
as  a  sofa.  And  in  it  was  Ellen,  in  a  white  dress  — 
in  Winter!  She  wore  them,  I  saw  after  a  while,  as 
casual  as  if  she  was  at  a  party,  perpetual.  But  there 
was  something  else  there  in  a  white  dress,  too,  sitting 
on  her  lap,  with  his  pink,  bare  feet  stretched  out  to 
the  blaze.  And  he  was  laughing,  and  Ellen  was,  too, 
at  Russell,  her  husband,  sitting  on  the  floor,  and 
aiming  his  head  right  at  the  baby's  stomach,  to  hear 
him  laugh  out  like  —  oh,  like  bluebells  must  be  doing 
in  the  Spring. 


io8         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Pretty  enough  to  paint,"  says  I  —  which  was  the 
first  they  knew  I  was  there. 

It  was  a  shame  to  spoil  it,  but  Ellen  and  Russell 
sprang  up,  and  tried  to  shake  hands  with  me,  though 
I  wasn't  taking  the  slightest  notice  of  them.  It  was 
the  baby  I  was  engaged  in.  I'd  never  seen  him  be- 
fore. In  fact,  I'd  never  seen  Ellen  and  Russell  since 
they  were  married  two  years  before  and  went  off  to 
Europe,  and  lived  on  a  peak  of  the  Alps  where  the 
baby  was  born. 

They  took  me  to  a  gray  little  room  that  was  to 
be  mine,  and  I  put  on  a  fresh  lace  collar  and  my 
cameo  pin  and  my  best  back  comb.  And  then  dinner 
was  ready  —  a  little,  round  white  table  with  not  one 
living  thing  on  it  but  lace  and  roses  and  glass  and 
silver. 

"  Why,"  says  I,  before  I  got  through  with  my 
melon  that  came  first,  "  why,  you  two  must  be  per- 
fectly happy,  ain't  you?  " 

And  Ellen  says,  looking  over  to  him : 

"  Perfectly,  absolutely,  radiantly  happy.     Yes,  I 


am." 


And  this  is  what  Russell  done.  He  broke  his 
bread,  and  nodded  to  both  of  us  promiscuous,  and  he 
says: 

"  Considerable  happier  than  any  decent  man  has  a 
right  to  be,  I'm  thinking." 

I  noticed  that  incident  particular.  And  when  I 
look  back  on  it  now,  I  know  that  that  very  first  eve- 


SOMETHING  PLUS  109 

n-ing  I  begun  noticing  other  things.  I  remember 
the  talk  went  on  about  like  this : 

"  Ellen,"  says  Russell,  "  the  dog  show  opened  yes- 
terday. They've  got  some  great  little  pups,  I  hear. 
Aren't  you  going  in?  " 

"  Why  —  I  am  if  you  are,"  says  Ellen. 

"  Nonsense,"  says  Russell,  "  I  can  run  in  any  time, 
but  I  can't  very  well  meet  you  there  in  the  middle  of 
the  day.  You  go  in  yourself." 

"  Well,  I  only  enjoy  it  about  a  third  as  much  to 
go  alone,"  says  she. 

"  The  dogs  don't  differ  when  I'm  along,  you  know, 
lady,"  says  he,  smiling. 

"  You  know  that  isn't  what  I  mean,"  she  says. 

And  she  looked  over  at  him,  and  smiled  at  his 
eyes  with  her  eyes.  But  I  saw  that  he  looked  away 
first,  sort  of  troubled.  And  I  thought: 

"  Why,  she  acts  as  if  not  enjoying  things  when  he 
ain't  along  is  a  kind  of  joyful  sacrifice,  that  would 
please  any  man.  I  wonder  if  it  does." 

It  happened  two-three  times  through  dinner.  She 
hadn't  been  over  to  see  some  kind  of  a  collection,  and 
couldn't  he  come  home  some  night  early  and  take  her  ? 
He  couldn't  promise  —  why  didn't  she  go  herself 
and  tell  him  about  it? 

"  You  wouldn't  have  said  that  three  years  ago," 
she  says,  half  fun,  half  earnest,  and  waited  for  him 
to  deny  it.  But  he  didn't  seem  to  sense  what  was 
expected  of  him,  and  he  just  et  on. 


i io        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Ain't  it  funny  how  you  can  sort  of  see  things 
through  the  pores  of  your  skin?  By  the  time  din- 
ner was  over,  I  knew  most  as  much  about  those  two 
as  if  I  had  lived  in  the  house  with  them  a  week. 

He  was  wonderful  tender  with  her,  though.  I 
don't  mean  just  in  little  loverlike  ways,  saying  things 
and  calling  her  things  and  looking  at  her  gentle. 
I  mean  in  ways  that  don't  have  to  be  said 
or  called  or  looked,  but  that  just  are.  To  my 
mind  they  mean  a  thousand  times  more.  But  I 
thought  that  in  her  heart  she  sort  of  hankered  for 
the  said  and  called  and  looked  kind.  And  of  course 
they  are  nice.  Nice,  but  not  vital  like  the  other 
sort.  If  you  had  to  get  along  without  one,  you 
know  which  one  would  be  the  one. 

When  we  went  into  the  other  room,  Ellen  took 
me  to  look  at  the  baby,  in  bed,  asleep,  same  as  a 
kitten  and  a  rosebud  and  a  little  yellow  chicken,  and 
all  the  things  that  you  love  even  the  names  of.  And 
when  we  went  back,  Ellen  went  to  the  piano  and 
begun  to  play  rambley  things  but  low  so's  you  could 
hardly  hear  them  across  the  room,  on  account  of  the 
baby.  I  sank  down  and  was  listening,  contented, 
and  thinking  of  the  most  thinkable  things  I  knew, 
when  she  looked  over  her  shoulder. 

"  Russell,"  she  says,  "  if  you'll  come  and  turn  the 
music,  I'll  do  that  new  Serenade." 

Russell  was  on  a  couch,  stretched  out  with  a  news- 
paper and  his  pipe,  and  I  dunno  if  I  ever  seen  a  man 


SOMETHING  PLUS  in 

look  more  luxurious.  But  he  got  up,  sort  of  a  one- 
joint-at-a-time  fashion,  and  came  slumping  over,  with 
his  hair  sticking  out  at  the  back.  He  stood  and 
turned  the  music,  with  his  pipe  behind  him.  And 
when  she'd  got  through,  he  says : 

"  Very  pretty,  indeed.  Now  I'll  just  finish  my 
article,  I  guess,  dear." 

He  went  back  to  his  couch.  And  she  got  up,  kind 
of  quick,  and  walked  over  and  stared  into  the  fire. 
And  I  got  up  and  went  over  and  stared  out  the  win- 
dow. It  seemed  kind  of  indelicate  to  be  looking, 
when  I  knew  so  well  what  was  happening  in  that 
room. 

For  she'd  forgot  he  was  a  person.  She  was  think- 
ing that  he  was  just  another  one  of  her.  And  that 
seems  to  me  a  terrible  thing  for  any  human  being  to 
get  to  thinking  about  another ,  married  to  them  or  not 
though  they  be. 

When  I  looked  out  the  window,  I  needed  new 
words.  I  hadn't  realized  the  elevator  had  skimmed 
up  so  high  with  me  —  and  done  it  in  the  time  it  would 
have  taken  the  Emporium  elevator,  home,  to  go  the 
two  stories.  But  we  were  up  ten,  I  found  after- 
ward. And  there  I  was  looking  the  city  plain  in  the 
face.  Rows  and  rows  and  fields  of  little  lights  from 
windows  that  were  homes  —  and  homes  —  and 
homes.  I'd  never  seen  so  many  homes  in  my  life 
before,  at  any  one  time.  And  it  came  over  me,  as  I 
looked,  that  in  all  the  hundreds  of  them  I  was  look- 


112         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

ing  at,  and  in  the  thousands  that  lay  stretched  out 
beyond,  the  same  kind  of  thing  must  have  gone  on 
at  some  time  or  other,  or  be  going  to  go  on,  or  be 
going  on  now,  like  I  saw  clear  as  clear  was  going  on 
with  Ellen  and  Russell. 

It  was  the  third  night  I  was  there  that  the  thing 
happened.  I  was  getting  along  fine.  I  did  the  or- 
dering and  the  managing  and  took  part  care  of  the 
baby  and  mended  up  clothes  and  did  the  dozens  of 
things  that  Ellen  wasn't  strong  enough  to  do.  Delia 
and  I  had  got  to  be  real  good  friends  by  the  second 
day. 

Russell  came  home  that  third  night  looking  fagged 
out.  He  was  never  nervous  or  impatient  —  I  no- 
ticed that  about  him.  I'd  never  once  seen  him 
take  it  out  in  his  conversation  with  his  wife  merely 
because  he  had  had  a  hard  day.  We'd  just  gone  in 
from  the  dining-room  when  Russell,  instead  of  light- 
ing his  pipe  and  taking  his  paper,  turned  round  on  the 
rug,  and  says : 

"  Dear,  I  think  I'll  go  over  to  Beldon's  a  while  to- 
night." 

She  was  crossing  the  floor,  and  I  remember  how 
she  turned  and  looked  at  him. 

"Beldon's?"  she  said.  "  Have  —  have  you 
some  business?  " 

"  No,"  Russell  says.  "  He  wanted  me  to  come 
in  and  have  a  game  of  billiards." 


SOMETHING  PLUS  113 

"  Very  well,"  she  says  only,  and  she  went  and  sat 
down  by  the  fire. 

He  got  into  his  coat,  humming  a  little  under  his 
breath,  and  then  he  came  over  and  stooped  down 
and  kissed  her.  She  kissed  him,  but  she  hardly 
turned  her  head.  And  she  didn't  turn  her  head  at 
all  as  he  went  out. 

When  he'd  gone  and  she  heard  the  apartment  door 
shut,  Ellen  fairly  frightened  me.  She  sank  down  in 
the  big  chair  where  I  had  first  seen  her,  and  put  her 
head  on  its  arm,  and  cried  —  cried  till  her  little  shoul- 
ders shook,  and  I  could  hear  her  sobs.  "  Ellen," 
I  says,  "  what  is  it?  "  Though,  mind  you,  I  knew 
well  enough. 

She  put  her  arms  round  my  neck  as  I  kneeled  down 
beside  her.  "  Oh,  Calliope,  Calliope!"  she  says. 
"  It's  the  end  of  things." 

"End,"  says  I,  "of  what?" 

She  looked  in  my  face,  with  the  tears  streaming 
down  hers.  "  Didn't  you  realize,"  she  says,  "  that 
that  is  the  first  time  my  husband  ever  has  left  me  in 
the  evening  —  when  he  didn't  have  to  ?  " 

I  saw  that  I  had  to  be  as  wise  as  ten  folks  and  as 
harmless  as  none,  if  I  was  to  help  her  —  and  help 
him.  And  all  at  once  I  felt  as  if  I  was  ten  folks,  and 
as  if  I'd  got  to  live  up  to  them  all. 

Because  I  didn't  underestimate  the  minute.  No 
woman  can  underestimate  that  minute  when  it  comes 


ii4        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

to  any  other  woman.  For  out  of  it  there  are  likely 
to  come  down  onto  her  the  issues  of  either  life  or 
death;  and  the  worst  of  it  is  that,  ten  to  one,  she  never 
once  sees  that  it's  in  her  power,  maybe,  to  say  whether 
it  shall  be  life  or  death  that  comes. 

"  What  of  it?  "  I  says,  as  calm  as  if  I  didn't  see 
anything  at  all,  instead  of  seeing  more  than  she  saw, 
as  I  know  I  did. 

She  stared  at  me.  "  Don't  you  understand,"  she 
says,  "  what  it  means?  " 

"  Why,  it  means/'  says  I,  "  that  he  wants  a  game 
of  billiards,  the  way  any  other  man  does,  once  in  a 
while." 

She  shook  her  head,  mournful. 

u  Three  years  ago  this  Winter,"  says  she,  "  only 
three  short  years  ago,  every  minute  of  the  world  that 
Russell  had  free,  he  wanted  to  spend  with  me.  That 
Winter  before  we  were  married,  do  you  suppose  that 
anybody  —  anybody  could  have  got  him  to  play  bil- 
liards with  him  if  he  could  have  been  with  me?  " 

I  thought  it  over.  "  Well,"  I  says,  "  no.  Likely 
not.  But  then,  you  see,  he  couldn't  be  with  you  every 
evening  —  and  that  just  naturally  give  him  some 
nights  off." 

"'Some  nights  off,'"  she  says.  "  Oh,  if  you 
think  that  is  the  way  he  looks  at  it  —  There  is  no 
way  in  this  world  that  I  would  rather  spend  my  eve- 
nings," she  says,  "  than  to  sit  here  with  my  husband." 

"  Yes,"  I  says,  "  I  s'pose  that's  true.     I  s'pose 


SOMETHING  PLUS  115 

that's    true    of   most   wives.     And    it's    something 
they've  got  to  get  over  thinking  is  so  important." 

She  gasped.  "  Get  over  — "  she  says.  "  Then,'* 
says  she,  "  they'll  have  to  get  over  loving  their  hus- 
bands." 

"  Oh,  dear,  no,  they  won't  —  no,  they  won't,"  says 
I.  "  But  they'll  have  to  get  over  thinking  that  self- 
ishness is  love  —  for  one  thing.  Most  folks  get 
them  awful  mixed  —  I've  noticed  that." 

But  she  broke  down  again,  and  was  sobbing  on  the 
arm  of  the  chair.  u  To  think,"  she  says  over,  "  that 
now  it'll  never,  never  be  the  same  again.  From  now 
on  we're  going  to  be  just  like  other  married  folks !  " 

That  seemed  to  me  a  real  amazing  thing  to  say, 
but  I  saw  there  wasn't  any  use  talking  to  her,  so  I 
just  let  her  cry  till  it  was  time  to  go  and  feed  the 
baby.  And  then  she  sat  nursing  him,  and  breathing 
long,  sobbing  breaths  —  and  once  I  heard  her  say, 
"  Poor,  poor  little  Mother's  boy!  "  with  all  the  ac- 
cent on  the  relationship. 

I  walked  back  into  the  middle  of  the  long,  soft, 
wine-colored  room,  trying  to  think  if  I  s'posed  I'd 
got  so  old  that  I  couldn't  help  in  a  thing  like  this, 
for  I  have  a  notion  that  there  is  nothing  whatever 
that  gets  the  matter  that  you  can't  help  some  way  if 
you're  in  the  neighborhood  of  it. 

Delia  was  just  shutting  the  outside  door  of  the 
apartment.  And  she  came  trotting  in  with  her  little, 
formal,  front-door  air. 


ii6         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Two  ladies  to  see  you,  Miss  Marsh,"  she  says. 
"  Mis*  Toplady  and  Mis'  Holcomb." 

No  sooner  said  than  heard,  and  I  flew  to  the  door, 
all  of  a  tremble. 

"  For  the  land  and  forevermore,"  says  I. 
"  Where  from  and  what  for?  " 

There  they  stood  in  the  doorway,  dressed,  I  see 
at  first  glance,  in  the  very  best  they'd  got.  Mis' 
Holcomb,  that  is  the  most  backward-feeling  of  any 
of  our  women,  was  a  step  behind  Mis'  Toplady,  and 
had  hold  of  her  arm.  And  Mis'  Toplady  was  kind 
of  tiptoeing  and  looking  round  cautious,  to  see  if 
something  not  named  yet  was  all  right. 

'There  ain't  any  company,  is  there ?"  she  says, 
in  a  part-whisper. 

"  No,"  says  I,  "  not  a  soul.     Come  on  in." 

"  Well,"  says  she,  relaxing  up  on  her  bones,  u  I 
asked  the  girl,  and  she  says  she'd  see.  What's  the 
use  of  being  a  hired  girl  if  you  don't  know  who  you've 
let  in?" 

"  Sit  down,"  says  I,  "  and  tell  me  what  you're 
doing  here,  and  why  you've  come.  Is  anything  the 
matter?  I  see  there  ain't,  though  —  with  you  in 
your  best  clothes.  Throw  off  your  things." 

"  Calliope,"  says  Mis'  Holcomb,  "  you'd  never 
guess."  She  leaned  forward  in  her  chair.  "  We 
ain't  come  up  for  a  single  thing,"  says  she,  "  not  a 
thing!" 

Mis'  Toplady  leaned  forward,  too.     "  And  the 


SOMETHING  PLUS  117 

fare  a  dollar  and  ninety-six  cents  each  way,"  says  she, 
"  and  us  a-staying  at  a  hotel!  " 

"  Go  on,"  says  I.  "  How  long  you  going  to  be 
here?" 

"  Oh,  mercy,  only  to-night,"  Mis'  Holcomb  says. 
"  Why,  the  room  is  two-fifty  just  for  us  to  sleep  in  it. 
I  told  him  we  shouldn't  be  setting  in  it  a  minute,  but 
I  guess  he  didn't  believe  me." 

"  Well,  go  on,"  says  I.  "  Tell  me  what  you've 
come  for?  " 

Mis'  Toplady  leaned  back  and  looked  round  her 
and  sighed  —  and  anybody  could  of  told  that  her 
sigh  was  pleased  and  happy. 

"  Calliope,"  says  she,  "  we've  run  away  to  stay 
overnight  and  one  day  on  our  chicken  money,  because 
we  got  so  dead  tired  of  home." 

Mis'  Holcomb  just  giggled  out. 

"  It's  a  fact,"  she  says.  "  We  thought  we'd  come 
while  you  was  here,  for  an  excuse.  But  we  were 
just  sick  of  home,  and  that's  the  truth." 

I  looked  at  them,  stupefied,  or  part  that.  Mis' 
Toplady  and  Mame,  that's  been  examples  of  married 
contentment  for  thirty  years  on  end,  hand-running! 
It  begun  to  dawn  on  me,  slow,  what  this  meant,  as 
Mis'  Toplady  begun  to  tell  me  about  it. 

"  You  know,  Calliope,"  she  says,  "  the  very  best 
home  in  the  world  gets  — " 

Then  I  jumped  up.  "  Hold  on,"  I  says.  "  You 
wait  a  minute.  I'll  be  straight  back  again." 


n8         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

I  run  down  the  hall  to  the  bedroom  where  Ellen 
was.  She  was  just  laying  the  baby  down  —  even  in 
my  hurry  I  stopped  to  think  what  a  heavenly  and 
eternal  picture  that  makes  —  a  mother  laying  a  baby 
down.  There's  something  in  the  stooping  of  her 
shoulders  and  the  sweep  of  her  skirt  and  the  tender 
drooping  of  her  face,  with  the  lamp-light  on  her 
hair,  that  makes  a  picture  out  of  every  time  a  baby 
is  laid  in  his  bed.  The  very  fact  that  Ellen  looked  so 
lovely  that  way  made  me  all  the  more  anxious  to 
save  her. 

u  Ellen,"  I  says,  "  come  out  here,  please." 

I  pulled  her  along,  with  her  hair  all  loose  and 
lovely  about  her  face  —  Ellen  was  a  perfect  picture 
of  somebody's  wife  and  a  little  baby's  mother.  You 
never  in  the  world  would  have  thought  of  her  as  a 
human  being  besides. 

So  then  I  introduced  them,  and  I  sat  down  there 
with  them  —  the  two  I  knew  so  well,  and  the  one 
I'd  got  to  know  so  well  so  sudden.  And  two  of 
them  were*  nearly  sixty,  and  one  was  not  much  past 
twenty;  but  the  three  of  them  had  so  much  in  com- 
mon that  they  were  almost  like  one  person  sitting 
there  with  me,  before  the  fire. 

"  Now,"  says  I,  "  Mis'  Toplady,  go  ahead.  You 
needn't  mind  Ellen.  She'll  understand." 

After  a  little  bit,  Mis'  Toplady  did  go  ahead. 

"  Well,  sir,"  Mis'  Toplady  said,  "  I  dunno  what 
you'll  think  of  us,  but  this  is  the  way  it  was.  I  was 


SOMETHING  PLUS  119 

sitting  home  by  the  dining-room  table  with  Timothy 
night  before  last.  We  had  a  real  good  wood  fire  in 
the  stove,  and  a  tin  of  apples  baking  in  the  top,  that 
smelled  good.  And  the  lamp  had  been  filled  that 
day,  so  the  light  was  extra  bright.  And  there  was  a 
little  green  wood  in  the  fire  that  sort  of  sung  —  and 
Timothy  set  with  his  shoes  off,  as  he  so  often  does 
evenings,  reading  his  newspaper  and  warming  his 
stocking  feet  on  the  nickel  of  the  stove.  And  all  of 
a  sudden  I  looked  around  at  my  dining-room,  the  way 
I'd  looked  at  it  evenings  for  thirty  years  or  more,  ever 
since  we  went  to  housekeeping,  and  I  says  to  myself, 
*  I  hate  the  sight  of  you,  and  I  wish't  I  was  some- 
wheres  else.'  Not  that  I  do  hate  it,  you  know,  of 
course  —  but  it  just  come  over  me,  like  it  has  before. 
And  as  soon  as  my  tin  of  apples  was  done  and  I  took 
them  into  the  kitchen,  I  grabbed  my  shawl  down  off 
the  hook,  and  run  over  to  Mis'  Holcomb's.  And 
when  I  shut  her  gate,  I  near  jumped  back,  because 
there,  poking  round  her  garden  in  the  snow  in  the 
dark,  was  Mame ! 

"  So,"  Mis'  Toplady  continued,  "  we  hung  over 
the  gate  and  talked  about  it.  And  we  came  to  the 
solemn  conclusion  that  we'd  just  up  and  light  out  for 
twenty-four  hours.  We  told  our  husbands,  and  they 
took  it  philosophic.  Men  understand  a  whole  lot 
more  than  you  give  them  credit  for.  They  know  — 
if  they're  any  real  good  —  that  it  ain't  that  you  ain't 
fond  of  them,  or  that  you  ain't  thankful  you're  their 


120         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

wife,  but  that  youVe  just  got  to  have  things  that's 
different  and  interesting  and  —  and  tellable.  Any- 
how, that's  the  way  Mame  and  I  figgered  it  out. 
And  we  got  into  our  good  clothes,  and  we  came  up 
to  the  city,  and  went  to  the  hotel,  and  got  us  a  bowl 
of  hot  oyster  soup  apiece.  And  then  we  had  the 
street-car  ride  out  here,  and  we'll  have  another  going 
back.  And  we've  seen  you.  And  we'll  have  a  walk 
past  the  store  windows  in  the  morning  before  train- 
time.  And  I  bet  when  we  get  home,  'long  towards 
night,  our  two  dining-rooms'll  look  real  good  to  us 
again  —  don't  you,  Mame?  " 

"  Yes,  sir!"  Mame  says,  with  her  little  laugh 
again.  "  And  our  husbands,  too  1  " 

I'd  been  listening  to  them  —  but  I'd  been  watch- 
ing Ellen.  Ellen  was  one  of  the  women  that  aren't 
deceived  by  outside  appearances,  same  as  some. 
Mis'  Toplady  and  Mis'  Holcomb  didn't  look  any 
more  like  her  city  friends  than  a  cat's  tail  looks  like 
a  plume,  but  just  the  same  Ellen  saw  what  they 
were  and  what  they  were  worth.  And  when  they  got 
done: 

"  Do  you  mean  you  are  going  back  to-morrow?  " 
she  says. 

"  Noon  train,"  says  Mame,  "  and  be  home  in  time 
to  cook  supper  as  natural  as  life  and  as  good  as  new." 

Ellen  kept  looking  at  them,  and  I  guessed  what 
she  was  thinking:  A  hundred  miles  they'd  come  for 
a  change,  and  all  they'd  got  was  two  street-car  rides 


SOMETHING  PLUS  121 

and  a  bowl  of  oyster  soup  apiece  and  this  call,  and 
they  were  going  home  satisfied. 

All  of  a  sudden  Ellen  sat  up  straight  in  her  chair. 

"  See,"  she  says,  u  it's  only  eight  o'clock.  Why 
can't  the  four  of  us  go  to  the  theater?  " 

The  two  women  sort  of  gasped,  in  two  hitches. 

"Us?"  they  says. 

Ellen  jumped  up.  "  Quick,  Calliope,"  she  says. 
"  Get  your  things  on.  Delia  can  stay  with  the  baby. 
I'll  telephone  for  a  taxi.  We  can  decide  what  to 
see  on  the  way  down.  You'll  go,  won't  you?  "  she 
asks  'em. 

"Go!"  says  they,  in  one  breath.  "Oh  —  yes, 
sir!  " 

In  no  time,  or  thereabouts,  we  found  ourselves 
down-stairs  packing  into  the  taxicab.  I  was  just  as 
much  excited  as  anybody  —  I  hadn't  been  to  a  play  in 
years.  Ellen  told  us  what  there  was  as  we  went 
down,  but  they  might  have  been  the  names  of  French 
cooking  for  all  they  meant  to  us,  and  we  left  it  to  her 
to  pick  out  where  we  were  to  go. 

When  we  followed  her  down  the  aisle  of  the  one 
she  picked  out,  just  after  the  curtain  went  up,  where 
do  you  think  she  took  us?  Into  a  box!  It  was  so 
dark  that  Mis'  Toplady  and  Mame  never  noticed 
until  the  curtain  went  down,  and  the  lights  came  up, 
and  we  looked  round. 

As  for  me,  I  could  hardly  listen  to  the  play.  I  was 
thinking  of  these  two  dear  women  from  the  village, 


122         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

and  what  it  meant  to  them  to  have  something  differ- 
ent to  do.  But  even  more,  I  was  watching  Ellen, 
that  had  set  out  to  make  them  have  a  good  time,  and 
was  doing  her  best  at  it,  getting  them  to  talk  and 
making  them  laugh,  when  the  curtain  was  down. 
But  when  the  curtain  was  up,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
Ellen  wasn't  listening  to  the  play  so  very  much,  either. 

Before  the  last  act,  Ellen  had  to  get  back  to  the 
baby,  so  we  left  the  two  of  them  there  and  went 
home. 

"  Alone  in  the  box!  "  says  Mame  Holcomb,  as  we 
were  leaving.  "  My  land,  and  my  hat's  trimmed  on 
the  wrong  side  for  the  audience !  " 

"  Do  we  have  to  go  when  it's  out?  "  says  Mis' 
Toplady.  "  Won't  they  just  leave  us  set  here,  on 
—  and  on  —  and  on  ?  " 

I  remember  them  as  I  looked  back  and  saw  them, 
sitting  there  together.  And  something,  I  dunno 
whether  it  was  the  wedding-trip  poplin  dress,  or  the 
thought  of  the  two  dining-rooms  where  they'd  set 
for  so  long,  or  of  the  little  lark  they'd  planned,  sort 
of  made  a  lump  come  and  meet  a  word  I  was  trying 
to  say. 

We'd  got  out  to  the  entry  of  the  box,  when  some- 
body came  after  us,  and  it  was  little  bit  of  Mame 
Holcomb,  looking  up  with  eyes  bright  as  a  blue  jay's 
at  the  feed-dish. 

"  Oh,"  she  says  to  Ellen,  "  I  ain't  half  told  you  — 
neither  of  us  has  —  what  this  means  to  us.  And  I 


SOMETHING  PLUS  123 

wanted  you  to  know  —  we  both  of  us  do  —  that  the 
best  part  is,  you  so  sort  of  understood." 

Ellen  just  bent  over  and  kissed  her.  And  when 
we  came  out  in  the  hall,  all  light  and  red  carpet,  I 
see  Ellen's  eyes  were  full  of  tears. 

And  when  we  got  in  the  taxicab :  "  Ellen,"  I 
says,  "  I  thank  you,  too  —  ever  so  much.  You  did 
understand.  So  did  I." 

"  I  don't  know  —  I  don't  know/'  she  says  "  But, 
Calliope,  how  in  the  world  do  you  understand  that 
kind  of  thing?" 

So  I  said  it,  right  out  plain: 

"  Oh,"  I  says,  "  I  guess  sheer  because  I've  seen  so 
much  unhappiness,  and  on  up  to  divorce,  come  about 
sole  because  married  folks  will  hunt  in  couples  per- 
petual, and  not  let  themselves  be  just  folks." 

When  we  got  home  —  and  we  hadn't  said  much 
more  all  the  way  there  —  as  we  opened  the  living- 
room  door,  I  saw  that  we'd  got  there  first,  before 
Russell.  I  was  glad  of  that.  Ellen  ran  right  down 
the  hall  to  the  baby's  room,  and  I  took  off  my  things 
and  went  down  to  the  end  of  the  room  where  the 
couch  was,  to  lay  down  till  she  came  back. 

I  must  have  dozed  off,  because  I  didn't  hear  Rus- 
sell come  in.  The  first  I  knew,  he  was  standing  with 
his  back  to  the  fire,  filling  his  pipe.  So  I  looked 
in  his  face,  when  he  didn't  know  anybody  was  look- 
ing. 

He  had  evidently  walked  home,  and  had  come  in 


i24        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

fresh  and  glowing  and  full  of  frosty  air,  and  his 
cheeks  were  ruddy.  He  was  smiling  a  little  at  some- 
thing or  other,  and  altogether  he  looked  not  a  bit 
like  the  tired  man  that  had  come  home  that  night  to 
dinner. 

Then  I  heard  the  farther  door  click,  and  Ellen's 
step  in  the  hall. 

He  looked  toward  the  door,  and  I  saw  the  queer- 
est expression  come  in  his  face.  Now,  there  was 
Russell,  a  man  of  twenty-seven  or  eight,  a  grown  man 
that  had  lived  his  independent  life  for  years  before 
he  had  married  Ellen.  And  yet,  honestly,  when  he 
looked  up  then,  his  face  and  his  eyes  were  like  those 
of  a  boy  that  had  done  something  that  he  had  been 
scolded  for.  He  looked  kind  of  apologetic  and  ex- 
planatory—  a  look  no  man  ought  to  be  required  to 
look  unless  for  a  real  reason.  It  seems  so  —  igno- 
minious for  a  human  being  to  have  to  look  like  that 
when  they  hadn't  done  a  thing  wrong. 

My  heart  sank  some.  I  thought  of  the  way  Ellen 
had  been  all  slumped  down  in  that  easy  chair,  crying 
and  taking  on.  And  I  waited  for  her  to  come  in, 
feeling  as  if  all  the  law  and  the  prophets  hung  on 
the  next  few  minutes  —  and  I  guess  they  did. 

She'd  put  on  a  little,  soft  house-dress,  made  you- 
couldn't-tell-how,  of  lace,  with  blue  showing  through, 
kind  of  like  clouds  and  the  sky.  But  it  was  her  face 
I  looked  at,  because  I  remembered  the  set  look  it  had 
when  she'd  told  Russell  good-by.  And  when  I  see 


SOMETHING  PLUS  125 

her  face  now  there  in  all  that  sky-and-clouds  effect, 
honest,  it  was  like  a  star. 

"  Hello,  dear,"  she  says,  kind  of  sweet  and  casual, 
"  put  a  stick  of  wood  on  the  fire  and  tell  me  all  about 
it." 

I  tell  you,  my  heart  jumped  up  then  as  much  as  it 
would  of  if  I'd  heard  her  say  "  I  will  "  when  they 
were  married.  For  this  was  their  new  minute. 

"  Sit  here,"  he  says,  and  pulled  her  down  to  the 
big  chair,  and  sat  on  the  low  chair  beside  her,  where 
I'd  seen  him  first.  Only  now,  the  baby  wasn't  there 
—  it  was  just  the  two  of  them. 

"  Did  you  beat  them  all  to  pieces?  "  she  asks,  still 
with  that  blessed,  casual,  natural  way  of  hers. 

He  smiled,  sort  of  pleased  and  proud  and  humble. 
"  I  did,"  he  owns  up.  "  You're  my  wife,  and  I  can 
brag  to  you  if  I  want  to.  I  walloped  'em." 

He  told  her  about  the  game,  saying  a  lot  of  things 
that  didn't  mean  a  thing  to  me,  but  that  must  have 
meant  to  her  what  they  meant  to  him,  because  she 
laughed  out,  pleased. 

"  Good!  "  she  says.  "  You  play  a  corking  game, 
if  I  do  say  it.  Do  you  know,  you  look  a  lot  better 
than  you  did  when  you  came  home  to  dinner  ?  I  hate 
to  see  you  look  tired  like  that." 

"  I  feel  fit  as  a  fish  now,"  says  he.  "  There's 
something  about  an  evening  like  that  with  half  a 
dozen  of  'em  —  it  isn't  the  game.  It's  the  —  oh, 
I  don't  know.  But  it  kind  of  — " 


126        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

He  petered  off,  and  she  didn't  make  the  mistake  of 
agreeing  too  hard  or  talking  about  it  too  long.  She 
just  nodded,  and  pretty  soon  she  told  him  some  little 
thing  about  the  baby.  When  he  emptied  his  pipe, 
she  said  she  thought  she'd  go  to  bed. 

But  when  she  got  up,  he  reached  up  and  pulled 
her  back  in  the  chair  again,  and  moved  so  that  he  set 
with  his  cheek  against  hers.  And  he  says : 

"  I've  got  something  to  tell  you." 

She  picked  up  his  hand  to  lean  her  head  on,  and 
says,  "  What?  Me?  " — which  I'd  noticed  was  one 
of  the  little  family  jokes,  that  no  family  should  be 
without  a  set  of. 

"  Do  you  know,  Ellen,"  he  said,  "  to-night,  when 
I  went  out  to  go  over  to  Beldon's,  I  thought  you 
didn't  like  my  going." 

"  You  did?  "  she  says.  "  What  made  you  think 
that?" 

"  The  way  you  spoke  —  or  looked  —  or  kissed 
me.  I  don't  know.  I  imagined  it,  I  guess,"  says  he. 
"  And  —  I've  got  something  to  own  up." 

She  just  waited;  and  he  said  it  out,  blunt: 

"  It  made  me  not  want  to  come  home,"  says  he. 

"  Not  want  to  come  home?"  she  says  over, 
startled. 

He  nodded.  "  Lacy  and  Bright  both  left  Bel- 
don's before  I  did,"  he  says.  "  I  thought  probably 
—  I  don't  know.  I  imagined  you  were  going  to  be 


SOMETHING  PLUS  127 

polite  as  the  deuce,  the  way  I  thought  you  were  when 
I  went  out." 

"  Oh,"  she  says,  "  was  I  that?  " 

"  So  when  Lacy  and  Bright  made  jokes  about 
what  their  wives'd  say  if  they  didn't  get  home,  I 
joined  in  with  them,  and  laughed  at  the  *  apron 
strings.'  That's  what  we  called  it." 

She  moved  a  little  away.  "  Did  you  do  that?  " 
she  said.  "  Oh,  Russell,  I  should  hate  that.  I 
should  think  any  woman  would  hate  it." 

"  I  know,"  he  says.  "  I'm  dead  sorry.  But  I 
wanted  you  to  know.  And,  dear  — " 

He  got  up  and  stood  before  her,  with  her  hands 
crushed  up  in  his. 

"  I  want  you  to  know,"  he  says,  kind  of  solemn, 
"  that  the  way  you  are  about  this  makes  me  - —  glad- 
der than  the  dickens.  Not  for  the  reason  you  might 
think  —  because  it's  going  to  make  it  easy  to  be 
away  when  I  want  to.  But  because  — " 

He  didn't  say  things  very  easy.  Most  men  don't, 
except  for  their  little  bit  of  courting  time. 

"Well,  thunder,"  he  said,  "don't  you  see?  It 
makes  me  so  sure  you're  my  wife  —  and  not  just 
married  to  me." 

She  smiled  up  at  him  without  saying  anything,  but 
I  knew  how  balm  and  oil  were  curing  the  hurt  that 
she  thought  she'd  had  that  night  when  he  went  out. 

"  I've  always  thought  of  our  each  doing  things  — 


128         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

and  coming  home  and  telling  each  other  about  them," 
he  says,  vague. 

"  Of  my  doing  things,  too?  "  she  asks,  quick. 

"  Why,  yes  —  sure.  You,  of  course,"  he  says, 
emphatic.  "  Haven't  you  seen  that  I  want  you  to 
do  things  sometimes,  without  me  tagging  on?  " 

"  Is  that  the  way  you  look  at  it?  "  she  says,  slow. 

He  gave  her  two  hands  a  gay  little  jerk,  and  pulled 
her  to  her  feet. 

"  Why,"  he  said,  "  you're  a  person.  And  I'm  a 
person.  If  we  really  love  each  other,  being  married 
isn't  only  something  instead.  It's  something  plus" 

11  Russell,"  she  says,  "  how  did  you  find  that  out?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  says.  "  How  does  anybody 
find  out  anything?  " 

I'll  never  forget  the  way  Ellen  looked  when  she 
went  close  to  him. 

"  By  loving  somebody  enough,  I  think,"  she  says. 

That  made  him  stop  short  to  wonder  about  some- 
thing. 

"  How  did  you  find  out,  if  it  comes  to  that?  "  he 
asks. 

"  What?  Me?  "  she  says.  "  Oh,  I  found  out  — 
by  special  messenger !  " 

Think  of  Mis'  Toplady  and  Mame  being  that,  un- 
beknownst ! 

They  turned  away  together,  and  walked  down  the 
room.  The  fire  had  burned  down,  and  everything 


SOMETHING  PLUS  129 

acted  like  eleven-o'clock-at-night.  It  made  a  nice 
minute.  I  like  to  think  about  it. 

"  To-morrow  morning,"  she  told  him,  "  I'm  go- 
ing to  take  Calliope  and  two  friends  of  hers  to 
the  dog  show.  And  you  —  don't  —  have  —  to  — 
come.  But  you're  invited,  you  know." 

He  laughed  like  a  boy. 

"  Well,  now,  maybe  I  can  drop  in !  "  says  he. 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT  * 

"  WE  could  have  a  baking  sale.  Or  a  general 
cooking  sale.  Or  a  bazaar.  Or  a  twenty-five-cent 
supper,"  says  I. 

Mis'  Toplady  tore  off  a  strip  of  white  cloth  so 
smart  it  sounded  saucy. 

"  I'm  sick  to  death,"  she  said,  "  of  the  whole  kit 
of  them.  I  hate  a  baking  sale  like  I  hate  wash-day. 
We've  had  them  till  we  can  taste  them.  I  know  just 
what  every  human  one  of  us  would  bring.  Bazaars 
is  death  on  your  feet.  And  if  I  sit  down  to  another 
twenty-five-cent  supper  —  beef  loaf,  bake'  beans, 
pickles,  cabbage  salad,  piece  o'  cake  —  it  seems  as 
though  I  should  scream." 

"  Me  too,"  agrees  Mis'  Holcomb. 

"  Me  too,"  I  says  myself.  "  Still,"  I  says,  "  we 
want  a  park  —  and  we  want  to  name  it  Hewitt  Park 
for  them  that's  done  so  much  for  the  town  a'ready. 
And  if  we  ever  have  a  park,  we've  got  to  raise  some 
money.  That's  flat,  ain't  it?  " 

We  all  allowed  that  this  was  flat,  and  acrost  the 
certainty  we  faced  one  another,  rocking  and  sewing 
in  my  nice  cool  sitting-room.  The  blinds  were  open, 

1  Copyright,  1914,  The  Delineator. 

130 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      131 

the  muslin  curtains  were  blowing,  bees  were  hum- 
ming in  the  yellow-rose  bush  over  the  window,  and 
the  street  lay  all  empty,  except  for  a  load  of  hay 
that  lumbered  by  and  brushed  the  low  branches  of 
the  maples.  And  somewheres  down  the  block  a 
lawn-mower  was  going,  sleepy. 

"Who's  that  rackin'  around  so  up-stairs?"  ask' 
Mis'  Toplady,  pretty  soon. 

Just  when  she  spoke,  the  little  light  footstep  that 
had  been  padding  overhead  came  out  in  the  hall  and 
down  my  stair. 

"  It's  Miss  Mayhew,"  I  told  them,  just  before 
Miss  Mayhew  tapped  on  the  open  door. 

"  Come  right  in  —  what  you  knocking  for  when 
the  door  sets  ajar?  "  says  I  to  her. 

Miss  Mayhew  stood  in  the  doorway,  her  rough 
short  skirt  and  stout  boots  and  red  sweater  all  say- 
ing "  I'm  going  for  a  walk,"  even  before  she  did. 
Only  she  adds :  "  I  wanted  to  let  you  know  I  don't 
think  I'll  get  back  for  supper." 

"  Such  a  boarder  I  never  saw,"  I  says.  "  You 
don't  eat  enough  for  a  bird  when  you're  here.  And 
when  you  ain't,  you're  off  gallivanting  over  the  hills 
with  nothing  whatever  to  eat.  And  me  with  a  fresh 
spice-cake  just  out  of  the  oven  for  your  supper." 

"  I'm  so  sorry,"  Miss  Mayhew  says,  penitent  to 
see. 

I  laid  down  my  work.  "  You  let  me  put  you  up 
a  couple  o'  pieces  to  nibble  on,"  says  I. 


132         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  You're  so  good.  May  I  come  too  ?  "  Miss  May- 
hew  asks,  and  smiled  bright  at  the  other  two  women, 
who  smiled  back  broad  and  almost  tender  —  Miss 
Mayhew's  smile  made  you  do  that. 

"  I  s'pose  them  writing  folks  can't  stop  to  think  of 
food,"  Mis'  Toplady  says  as  we  went  out. 

"  Look  at  her  lugging  a  book.  What's  she  want 
to  be  bothered  with  that  for?  "  Mis'  Holcomb  says. 

But  that  kind  of  fault-finding  don't  necessarily 
mean  unkindness.  With  us  it  was  as  natural  as  a 
glance. 

Out  in  the  kitchen,  I,  having  wrapped  two  nice 
slices  of  spice  cake  and  put  them  in  Miss  Mayhew's 
hand,  looked  up  at  her  and  was  shook  up  consider- 
able to  see  that  her  eyes  were  filled  with  tears. 

I  know  I'm  real  blunt  when  I'm  embarrassed  or 
trying  to  be  funny,  but  when  it  comes  to  tears  I'm 
more  to  home.  So  I  just  put  my  hand  on  the  girl's 
shoulder  and  waited  for  her  to  speak. 

"  It's  nothing,"  Miss  Mayhew  says  back  to  the 
question  I  didn't  ask.  u  I  —  I  — "  she  sobbed  out 
quite  open.  "  I'm  all  right,"  she  ends,  and  put  up 
her  head  like  a  banner. 

To  the  two  women  in  my  sitting-room  I  didn't 
say  a  word  of  that  moment,  when  I  went  back  to 
them.  But  what  I  did  say  acted  kind  of  electric. 

"  Now,"  says  I,  "  day  before  yesterday  was  my 
sweeping  day  for  the  chambers.  But  I  hated  to  dis- 
turb her,  she  set  there  scribbling  so  hard  when  I  stuck 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      133 

my  head  in.  She  ain't  been  out  of  the  house  since. 
If  you'll  excuse  me,  I'll  whisk  right  up  there  and 
sweep  out  now." 

The  women  begun  folding  their  work. 

"  Why,  don't  hurry  yourselves !  "  I  says.  "  Sit 
and  visit  till  I  get  through,  why  don't  you?  " 

u  Go !  "  says  Mis'  Toplady.  "  We  ain't  a-going. 
We're  going  to  help." 

"  I  been  dying  to  get  up-stairs  in  that  room  ever 
since  I  see  her  fix  it  up,"  Miss  Holcomb  lets  out, 
candid. 

Miss  Mayhew's  room  —  she'd  been  renting  my 
front  chamber  for  a  month  now  —  was  little  and 
bare,  but  her  daintiness  was  there,  like  her  saying 
something.  And  the  two  women  began  looking 
things  over  —  the  books,  the  pictures  — "  prints," 
Miss  Mayhew  called  them  —  the  china  tea-cups,  the 
silver-topped  bottles,  and  the  silver  and  ivory  toilet 
stuff. 

u  My,  what  a  homely  picture!"  Mis'  Holcomb 
says,  looking  at  a  scene  of  a  Japanese  lady  and  a 
mountain. 

"  What  in  the  world  is  these  forceps  for?  "  says 
Mis'  Toplady,  balancing  an  ivory  glove-stretcher 
with  Miss  Mayhew's  initials  on.  I  knew  that  it  was, 
because  I'd  asked  her. 

"  What  she  wants  of  a  dust-cap  I  dunno,"  Mis' 
Holcomb  contributes,  pointing  to  the  little  lace  and 
ribbon  cap  hanging  beside  the  toilet-table. 


134        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

And  I'd  wondered  that  myself.  She  put  it  on  for 
breakfast,  like  she  was  going  to  do  some  work; 
then  she  never  done  a  thing  the  whole  morning,  only 
wrote. 

Then  all  of  a  sudden  was  when  I  come  out  with 
something  surprising. 

"  Why,"  says  I,  "  it's  gone  !  " 

"  What's  gone?  "  they  says.  And  I  was  looking 
so  hard  I  couldn't  answer  —  bureau,  chest  of  draw- 
ers, bookshelves,  I  looked  on  all  of  them.  "  It  ain't 
here  anywhere,"  says  I,  "  and  he  was  that  hand- 
some — " 

I  told  them  about  the  photograph,  as  well  as  I 
could.  It  was  always  standing  on  the  bureau,  right 
close  up  by  the  glass  —  a  man's  picture  that  always 
made  me  want  to  say:  "Well,  you  look  just  ex- 
actly the  way  you  ought  to  look.  And  I  believe  you 
are  it."  He  looked  like  what  you  mean  when  you 
say  "  man  "  when  you're  young  —  big  and  dark  and 
frank  and  boyish  and  manly,  with  eyes  that  give 
their  truth  to  you  and  count  on  having  yours  back 
again.  That  kind. 

"  Land,"  I  says.  "  I'd  leave  a  picture  like  that 
up  in  my  room  no  matter  what  occurred  between 
me  and  the  one'  the  picture  was  the  picture  of. 
I  couldn't  take  it  down." 

But  now  it  was  down,  though  I  remembered  see- 
ing it  stand  there  every  time  I'd  dusted  ever  since 
Miss  Mayhew  had  come,  up  till  this  day.  And  when 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      135 

I'd  told  the  women  all  about  it,  they  couldn't  re- 
cover from  looking.  They  looked  so  energetic  that 
finally  Mis'  Toplady  pulled  out  the  wardrobe  a  little 
mite  and  peeked  behind  it. 

"  I  thought  mebbe  it'd  got  itself  stuck  in  here," 
she  explains,  bringing  her  head  back  with  a  great 
streak  of  dust  on  her  cheek  —  and  I  didn't  take  it  as 
any  reflection  whatever  on  my  housekeeping.  I've 
always  believed  that  there's  some  furniture  that  the 
dust  just  rises  out  of,  in  the  night,  like  cream  — 
and  of  those  the  backs  of  wardrobes  are  chief. 

Then  she  shoved  the  wardrobe  in  place,  and  the 
door  that  I'd  fixed  at  the  top  with  a  little  wob  of 
newspaper  so  it  would  stay  shut,  all  of  a  sudden 
swung  open,  and  the  other  one  followed  suit.  We 
three  stood  staring  at  what  was  inside.  For  my 
wardrobe,  that  had  never  had  anything  in  it  better 
than  my  best  black  silk,  was  hung  full  of  pink  and 
blue  and  rose  and  white  and  lavender  clothes. 
Dresses  they  were,  some  with  little  scraps  of  shining 
trimming  on,  and  all  of  them  not  like  anything  any 
of  us  had  ever  seen,  outside  of  fashion  books  —  if 
any. 

"  My  land!  "  says  I,  sitting  down  on  the  edge  of 
the  fresh-made  bed  —  a  thing  I  never  do  in  my  right 
senses. 

"  Party  clothes !  "  says  Mis'  Holcomb,  kind  of 
awelike.  "  Ball-gowns,"  she  says  it  over,  to  make 
them  sound  as  grand  as  they  looked. 


136        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Why,  mercy  me,"  Mis'  Toplady  says,  standing 
close  up  and  staring.  "  She's  an  actress,  that's  what 
she  is.  Them's  stage  clothes." 

"  Actress  nothing,"  I  says,  "  nor  they  ain't  ball 
dresses  —  not  all  anyway.  They're  just  light  colors, 
for  afternoon  wear,  the  most  of  them  —  but  like  we 
don't  wear  here  in  this  town,  'long  of  being  so  dur- 
able-minded." 

"  Have  you  ever  seen  her  wear  any  of  'em?" 
demands  Mis'  Toplady. 

"  I  can't  say  I  ever  have,"  I  says,  "  but  she  likely 
ain't  done  so  because  she  don't  want  to  do  different 
from  us.  That,"  says  I,  "  is  the  lady  of  it." 

Mis'  Holcomb  leaned  close  and  looked  at  the 
things  through  her  glasses. 

"  I  think  she'd  ought  to  wear  them  here,"  she  says. 
"  I'd  dearly  love  to  look  at  things  like  that.  Nobody 
ever  wore  things  here  like  that  since  the  Hewitts  went 
away.  We'd  all  love  to  see  them.  We  don't  see 
things  like  that  any  too  often.  I  s'pose  —  I  s'pose, 
ladies,"  says  she,  hesitating,  "  I  s'pose  it  wouldn't 
do  for  us  to  look  at  them  any  closer  up  to,  would 
it?" 

We  knew  it  wouldn't  —  not,  that  is,  to  the  point 
of  touching.  But  we  all  came  and  stood  by  the 
wardrobe  door  and  looked  as  close  up  to  as  we  durst. 

"  My,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  "  how  Mis'  Sykes 
would  admire  to  see  these.  And  Mis'  Hubbel- 
thwait.  And  Mis'  Sturgis.  And  Mis'  Merriman." 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      137 

And  then  she  went  on,  real  low: 

"  Why,  ladies,"  she  says,  "  why  couldn't  we  have 
an  exhibit  —  a  loan  exhibit?  And  put  all  those 
clothes  on  dress-makers'  forms  in  somebody's  par- 
lor—" 

"  And  charge  admission !  "  says  I.  "  Instead  of  a 
bazaar  or  a  supper  or  a  baking  sale  — " 

"  And  get  each  lady  that's  got  them  to  put  up  her 
best  dress  too,"  says  Mis'  Holcomb.  "  Mis'  Sykes 
has  never  had  a  chance  to  wear  her  navy-blue  velvet 
in  this  town  once,  and  she's  had  it  three  years.  I 
presume  she'd  be  glad  to  get  a  chance  to  show  it 
off  that  way." 

"And  Mis'  Sturgis  her  black  silk  that  she  had 
dressmaker  made  in  the  city,"  says  I,  "  when  she 
went  to  her  relation's  funeral.  She's  never  had  it 
on  her  back  but  the  once  —  it  had  too  much  jet  on 
it  for  anything  but  formal  —  and  that  once  was  to 
the  funeral,  and  then  it  was  so  cold  in  the  church 
she  had  to  keep  her  coat  on  over  it.  She's  often 
told  me  about  it,  and  she's  real  bitter  about  it,  for 
her." 

Mis'  Toplady  flushed  up.  "  I've  got,"  she  said, 
"  that  lavender  silk  dressing  gown  my  nephew  sent 
me  from  Japan.  It's  never  been  out  of  its  box  since 
it  come,  nine  years  ago,  except  when  I've  took  some- 
body up-chamber  to  show  it  to  them.  Do  you 
think—" 

"  Of  course  we'll  have  it,"  I  said,  "  and,  Mis'  Top- 


138        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

lady,  your  wedding-dress  that  you've  saved,  with  the 
white  raspberry  buttons.  And  there's  Mis'  Merri- 
man's  silk-embroidered  long-shawl  —  oh,  ladies,"  I 
says,  u  won't  it  be  nice  to  see  some  elegant  clothes 
wore  for  once  here  in  the  village,  even  if  it's  only 
on  dressmaker's  forms?  " 

"  So  be  Miss  Mayhew'll  only  let  us  take  hers," 
says  Mis'  Holcomb,  longing. 

We  planned  the  whole  thing  out,  sitting  up  there 
till  plump  six  o'clock  when  the  whistle  blew,  and  not 
a  scratch  of  sweeping  done  in  the  chamber  yet.  The 
ladies  both  flew  for  home  then,  and  I  went  at  the 
sweeping,  being  I  was  too  excited  to  eat  anyway, 
and  I  planned  like  lightning  the  whole  time.  And  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  arrange  with  Miss  Mayhew  that 
night. 

I'd  had  my  supper  and  was  rocking  on  the  front 
porch  when  she  came  home.  The  moon  was  shin- 
ing up  the  street,  and  the  maple  leaves  were  all  mov- 
ing pleasant,  and  their  shadows  were  moving  pleas- 
ant, too,  as  if  they  were  independent.  Everybody's 
windows  were  open,  and  somewhere  down  the  block 
some  young  folks  were  singing  an  old-fashioned  love- 
song  —  I  saw  Miss  Mayhew  stand  at  the  gate  and 
listen  after  she  had  come  inside.  Then  she  came  up 
the  walk  slow. 

"  Good  evening  and  glad  you're  back,"  said  I. 
"Jin'tthis  anight?" 

She  stood  on  the  bottom  step,  looking  the  moon  in 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      139 

the  face.  The  air  was  sweet  with  my  yellow  roses 
—  it  was  almost  as  if  the  moonlight  and  they  were 
the  same  color  and  both  sweet-smelling.  And  her  a 
picture  in  that  yellow  frame. 

"  Oh,  it  is  —  it  is,"  she  says,  and  she  sighs. 

41  This,"  I  says,  u  isn't  a  night  to  sigh  on." 

"  No,"  she  says,  "  it  isn't  —  is  it?  I  won't  do  it 
again." 

"  Sit  down,"  I  says,  "  I  want  to  ask  you  some- 
thing." 

So  then  I  told  her  how  her  wardrobe  door  had 
happened  to  swing  open,  and  what  we  wanted  to 
do. 

" —  we  don't  see  any  too  many  pretty  things  here 
in  the  village,"  I  said,  "  and  I'd  kind  of  like  to  do  it, 
even  if  we  didn't  make  a  cent  of  money  out  of  it  for 
the  park." 

She  didn't  say  anything  —  she  just  sat  with  her 
head  turned  away  from  me,  looking  down  the  street. 

" —  us  ladies,"  I  said,  "  we  don't  dress  very  much. 
We  can't.  We've  all  had  a  hard  time  to  get  to- 
gether just  what  we've  had  to  have.  But  we  all  like 
pretty  things.  I  s'pose  most  all  of  us  used  to  think 
we  were  going  to  have  them,  and  these  things  of 
yours  kind  of  make  me  think  of  the  way  I  use'  to 
think,  when  I  was  a  girl,  I'd  have  things  some  day. 
Of  course  now  I  know  it  don't  make  a  mite  of  differ- 
ence whether  anybody  ever  had  them  or  not  — 
there's  other  things  and  more  of  them.  But  still, 


PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

now  and  then  you  kind  of  hanker.  You  kind  of 
hanker,"  I  told  her. 

Still  she  didn't  say  anything.  I  thought  mebbe 
I'd  offended  her. 

"  We  wouldn't  touch  them,  you  know,"  I  said. 
"  We'd  only  just  come  and  look.  But  if  you'd 
mind  it  any — " 

Then  she  looked  up  at  me,  and  I  saw  that  her 
eyes  were  brimming  over  with  tears. 

"  Mind !  "  she  said.  "  Why,  no  —  no !  If  you 
can  really  use  those  things  of  mine.  But  they're  not 
nice  things,  you  know." 

;<  Well,"  I  says,  "  I  dunno  as  us  ladies  would  know 
that.  But  you  do  love  light  things  when  you've  had 
to  go  around  dressed  dark,  either  'count  of  economy 
or  'count  of  being  afraid  of  getting  talked  about. 
Or  both." 

She  got  up  and  leaned  and  kissed  me,  light. 
Wasn't  that  a  funny  thing  to  do?  But  I  loved  her 
for  it. 

"  Anything  I  own,"  she  says,  "  is  yours  to  use 
just  the  way  you  want  to  use  it." 

"  You're  just  as  sweet  as  you  are  pretty,"  I  told 
her,  "  and  more  I  dunno  who  could  say  about  no 


one." 


I  lay  awake  most  all  night  planning  it,  like  you 
will.  I  spent  most  of  the  next  day  tracking  round 
seeing  folks  about  it.  And  everybody  pitched  in  to 
work,  both  on  account  of  needing  the  money  for 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      141 

the  little  park  us  ladies  had  set  our  hearts  on,  and  on 
account  of  being  glad  to  have  some  place,  at  last,  to 
show  what  clothes  we'd  got  to  some  one,  even  if  it 
was  nobody  but  each  other. 

"  Oh,"  says  Mis'  Holcomb,  "  I  was  thinking  only 
the  other  day  if  only  somebody'd  get  married.  You 
know  we  ain't  had  an  evening  party  in  this  town  in 
years  —  not  since  the  Hewitts  went  away.  But  I 
couldn't  think  of  a  soul  likely  to  have  a  big  evening 
wedding  for  their  daughter  but  the  Mortons,  and 
little  Abbie  Morton,  she's  only  'leven.  It'd  take  an- 
other good  six  years  before  we  could  get  asked  to 
that.  And  I  did  want  to  get  a  real  chance  to  wear 
my  dress  before  I  made  it  over." 

"  The  Prices  might  have  a  wedding  for  Mamie," 
says  Mis'  Toplady,  reflective.  "  Like  enough  with 
a  catyier  and  all  that.  But  I  dunno's  Mamie's  ever 
had  a  beau  in  her  life." 

We  were  to  have  the  exhibit  —  the  Art  and  Loan 
Dress  Exhibit,  we  called  it  —  at  my  house,  and  I  tell 
you  it  was  fun  getting  ready  for  it.  But  it  was  hard 
work,  too,  as  most  fun  is. 

The  morning  of  the  day  that  was  the  day,  every- 
body came  bringing  their  stuff  over  in  their  arms. 
We  had  dress-forms  from  all  the  dress-makers  and 
all  the  stores  in  town,  and  they  were  all  set  up 
around  the  rim  of  my  parlor.  Mis'  Sturgis  had 
just  got  her  black  silk  put  up  and  was  trying  to  make 
out  whether  side  view  to  show  the  three  quarters 


143         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

train  or  front  view  to  show  the  jet  ornament  was 
most  becoming  to  the  dress,  when  Miss  Mayhew 
brought  in  her  things  and  began  helping  us. 

"  How  the  dead  speaks  in  clothes,"  Mis'  Sturgis 
says.  "  This  jet  ornament  was  on  my  mother's  bon- 
net for  twelve  years  when  I  was  a  little  girl." 

"  The  Irish  crochet  medallion  in  the  front  of  my 
basque,"  says  Mis'  Merriman,  u  was  on  a  scarf  of 
my  mother's  that  come  from  the  old  country.  It 
got  old,  and  I  took  the  best  of  it  and  appliqued  it  on 
a  crazy  quilt  and  slept  under  it  for  ye'ars.  Then 
when  I  see  Irish  crochet  beginning  to  be  wore  in  the 
magazines  again,  I  ripped  it  off  and  ragged  out  in  it." 

"  Oh,"  says  Miss  Mayhew,  all  of  a  sudden. 
"  What  a  lovely  shawl !  What  you  going  to  put 
that  on?  " 

44  Where?  "says  we. 

44  Why  this,"  she  says  —  but  still  we  didn't  see,  for 
she  didn't  have  anything  but  the  shawl  Mis'  Hubbel- 
thwait  had  worn  in  over  her  head.  4<  This  Paisley 
shawl,"  Miss  Mayhew  says. 

44  My  land !  "  says  Mis'  Hubbelthwait,  44 1  put  that 
on  me  to  go  through  the  cold  hall  and  bring  in  the 
kindling,  and  run  out  for  a  panful  of  chips,  and  like 
that." 

Miss  Mayhew  smiled.  44  You  must  put  that  on 
a  figure,"  she  says.  44  Why,  it's  beautiful.  Look 
at  those  colors." 

44  All  faded  out,"  says  Mis'  Hubbelthwait,  and 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      143 

thought  Miss  Mayhew  was  making  fun  of  her. 
But  she  wasn't.  And  she  insisted  on  draping  it 
and  putting  it  near  the  front.  Miss  Mayhew  was 
nice,  but  she  was  queer  in  some  things.  I'd  uphol- 
stered my  kitchen  rocker  with  part  of  my  Paisley 
shawl,  and  covered  the  ironing-board  under  the  cloth 
with  the  rest  of  it  —  and  nothing  would  do  but  that 
old  chair  must  be  toted  up  in  her  room !  And  yet 
I'd  spent  four  dollars  for  a  new  golden-oak  rocker 
when  she'd  engaged  the  rooms.  .  .  .  But  me,  I  urged 
them  to  let  her  do  as  she  pleased  with  Mis'  Hubbel- 
thwait's  shawl  that  morning;  because  I  remembered 
that  what  had  been  the  matter  in  my  kitchen  the 
afternoon  before  was  probably  still  the  matter. 
And  moreover,  I'd  looked  when  I  made  the  bed, 
and  I  see  that  the  picture  hadn't  been  set  back  on 
the  bureau. 

Well,  then  we  began  putting  up  Miss  Mayhew's 
own  things  —  and  I  tell  you  they  were  pretty. 
There  wasn't  much  to  them  —  little  slimpsey  soft 
silk  things,  made  real  inexpensive  with  no  lining, 
and  not  fussed  up  at  all  —  but  they  had  an  air  to 
them  that  you  can  hardly  ever  get  into  a  dress,  no 
matter  how  close  you  follow  your  paper  pattern. 
She  had  a  pink  and  a  blue  and  a  white  and  a  lav- 
ender —  and  one  lovely  rose  gown  that  I  took  and 
held  up  before  her. 

"  I'd  dearly  love  to  see  you  in  this,"  says  I.  "  I 
bet  you  look  like  a  rose  in  it  —  or  more  so." 


144         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Her  face,  that  was  usually  bright  and  soft  all  in 
one,  sort  of  fell,  like  a  cloud  had  blown  over  it. 

"  I  always  liked  to  wear  that  dress,"  she  says. 
"  I  had  —  there  were  folks  that  liked  it." 

"  Put  it  on  to-night,"  I  says,  "  and  take  charge  of 
this  room  for  us." 

But  she  kind  of  shrunk  back,  and  shook  her  head. 

And  I  thought,  like  lightning,  "  It  was  the  Pic- 
ture Man  that  was  on  the  bureau  that  liked  to  see 
you  in  that  dress  —  or  I  miss  my  guess." 

But  I  never  said  a  word,  and  went  on  putting  a 
dress-form  together. 

The  room  looked  real  pretty  when  we  got  all  the 
things  up.  There  were  fourteen  dresses  in  all, 
around  the  room.  In  the  very  middle  was  Mis' 
Toplady's  wedding-dress  —  white  silk,  made  real 
full,  with  the  white  raspberry  buttons. 

"  For  twenty  years,"  she  said,  "  it's  been  in  the 
bottom  drawer  of  the  spare  room.  It's  nice  to  see 
it  wore." 

And  we  all  thought  it  was  so  nice  that  we  bor- 
rowed the  wax  figure  from  the  White  House  Em- 
porium, and  put  the  dress  on.  It  looked  real  funny, 
though,  to  see  that  smirking,  red-cheeked  figure  with 
lots  of  light  hair  and  its  head  on  one  side,  coming 
up  out  of  Mis'  Toplady's  wedding-dress. 

Us  ladies  were  all  ready  and  on  hand  early  that 
night,  dressed  in  our  black  alpacas  and  wearing 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      145 

white  aprons,  most  of  us;  and  Miss  Mayhew  had  on 
a  little  white  dimity,  and  she  insisted  on  helping  in 
the  kitchen  —  we  were  going  to  give  them  only  lem- 
onade and  sandwiches,  for  we  were  expecting  the 
whole  town,  and  the  admission  was  only  fifteen  cents 
apiece. 

Then  —  I  remember  it  was  just  after  the  clock 
struck  seven  —  my  telephone  rang.  And  it  was  a 
man's  voice  —  which  is  exciting  in  itself,  no  man 
ev,er  calling  me  up  without  it's  the  grocery-man  to 
try  to  get  rid  of  some  of  his  fruit  that's  going  to 
spoil,  or  the  flour  and  feed  man  to  say  he  can't  send 
up  the  corn-meal  till  to-morrow,  after  all.  And 
this  Voice  wasn't  like  either  one  of  them. 

He  asked  if  this  was  my  number,  brisk  and  strong 
and  deep  and  sure,  and  as  if  he  was  used  to  every- 
thing there  is. 

"  Is  Miss  Marjorie  Mayhew  there?  "  says  he. 

"  Miss  Marjorie  Mayhew,"  says  I,  thoughtful. 
4  Why,  I  dunno's  I  ever  heard  her  front  name." 

"Whose  front  name?"  says  he. 

"  Why,"  says  I,  "  Miss  Mayhew's.  That's  who 
we're  talking  about,  ain't  it?  " 

"  Oh,"  says  he,  "  then  there  is  a  Miss  Mayhew 
staying  there?  " 

"  No,  sir,"  says  I  short,  "  there  ain't.  She's  the 
Miss  Mayhew  —  the  one  I  mean  —  and  anybody 
that's  ever  seen  her  would  tell  you  the  same  thing." 


146         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

He  was  still  at  that,  just  for  a  second.  And 
when  he  spoke  again,  his  voice  had  somehow  got 
a  little  different  —  I  couldn't  tell  how. 

"  I  see,"  says  he,  "  that  you  and  I  understand 
each  other  perfectly.  May  I  speak  to  the  Miss 
Mayhew?" 

'  Why,  sure,"  says  I  hearty.     "  Sure  you  can." 

So  I  went  in  the  kitchen  and  found  her  where  she 
was  stirring  lemon-juice  in  my  big  stone  crock. 
And  when  I  told  her,  first  she  turned  red-rose  red, 
and  then  she  turned  white-rose  white. 

"  Me?  "  she  says.  "  Who  can  want  me?  Who 
knows  I'm  here?  " 

"  You  go  on  and  answer  the  'phone,  child,"  I 
says  to  her.  "  Him  and  me,  we  understand  each 
other  perfectly." 

So  she  went.  I  couldn't  help  hearing  what  she 
said. 

"  Yes." 

"  Yes." 

"  You  are?" 

"  It  doesn't  matter  in  the  least." 

"  If  you  wish." 

'*  Two  automobiles?  " 

"  Very  well.     Any  time." 

"  Oh,  not  at  all,  I  assure  you." 

—  all  in  a  cool,  don't-care  little  voice  that  I 
never  in  this  wide  world  would  have  recognized  as 
Miss  Mayhew's  voice.  Then  she  hung  up.  And  I 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      147 

stepped  out  of  the  cloak-closet.  I  took  hold  of  her 
two  shoulders  and  looked  in  her  eyes.  And  I  saw 
she  was  palpitating  and  trembling  and  breathless  and 
pink. 

"  Marjorie  Mayhew,"  I  says,  "  I  never  knew  that 
was  your  name,  till  just  now  when  that  Nice  Voice 
asked  for  you.  But  stranger  though  you  are  to  me 
—  or  more  so  —  I  want  to  say  something  to  you : 
//  you  ever  love  —  I  don't  say  That  Nice  Voice,  but 
Any  Nice  Voice,  don't  you  never,  never  speak  cold 
to  it  like  you  just  done.  No  matter  what  — " 

She  looked  at  me,  kind  of  sweet  and  kind  of  still, 
and  long  and  deep.  And  I  saw  that  we  both  knew 
what  we  both  knew. 

"  I  know,"  she  says.  "  Folks  are  so  foolish  — 
oh,  so  foolish !  I  know  it  now.  And  yet  — " 

"  And  yet  you  young  folks  hurt  love  for  pride  all 
the  time,"  I  says.  "  And  love  is  gold,  and  pride  is 
clay.  And  some  of  you  never  find  it  out  till  too 
late." 

"  I  know,"  she  says  in  a  whisper,  "  I  know  — " 
Then  she  looked  up.  "  Twelve  folks  are  coming 
here  in  two  automobiles  in  about  half  an  hour.  The 
telephone  was  from  Prescott  —  that's  about  ten 
miles,  isn't  it?  It's  the  Hewitts.  From  the  city  — 
and  some  guests  of  theirs  — " 

uThe  Hewitts?"  I  says  over.  "From  the 
city?" 

She  nodded. 


i48        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  The  Hewitts,"  I  pressed  on,  "  that  give  us  our 
library?  And  that  we  want  to  name  the  park  for?  " 

Yes.     It  was  them. 

"  Why,  my  land,"  I  says,  "  my  land  —  let  me  tell 
the  ladies." 

I  rushed  in  on  them,  where  they  were  walking 
'round  the  parlor  peaceful,  each  lady  looking  over 
her  own  dress  and  giving  little  twitches  to  it  here 
and  there  to  make  the  set  right. 

"  The  Hewitts,"  I  says,  "  that  we've  all  wanted 
to  meet  for  years  on  end.  And  now  look  at  us  — 
dressed  up  in  every-day,  or  not  so  much  so,  when 
we'd  like  to  do  them  honor." 

Mis'  Toplady,  standing  by  her  wedding  dress  on 
the  wax  form,  waved  both  her  arms. 

"  Ladies !  "  she  says.  "  S'posing  we  ain't  any  of 
us  dressed  up.  Can't  we  dress  up,  I'd  like  to  know? 
Here's  all  our  best  bib  and  tucker  present  with  us. 
What's  to  prevent  us  putting  it  on?  " 

"  But  the  exhibit!  "  says  Mis'  Holcomb  most  into 
a  wail.  "  The  exhibit  that  they  was  to  pay  fifteen 
cents  apiece  for?  " 

"Well,"  says  Mis'  Toplady  majestic,  "they'll 
have  it,  won't  they?  We'll  tell  them  which  is  which 
—  only  we'll  all  be  wearing  our  own !  " 

Like  lightning  we  decided.  Each  lady  ripped  her 
own  dress  off  its  wire  form  and  scuttled  for  up-stairs. 
I  took  mine  too,  and  headed  with  them;  and  at  the 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      149 

turn  I  met  Marjorie  Mayhew,  running  down  the 
stairs. 

"Oh!"  she  says,  kind  of  excited  and  kind  of 
ashamed.  "  Do  you  think  it'd  spoil  your  exhibit  if 
I  took  —  if  I  wore  —  that  rose  dress — " 

u  No,  child,"  I  says.  "  Go  right  down  and  get 
it.  That  won't  spoil  the  exhibit.  The  exhibit,"  I 
says,  "  is  going  to  be  exhibited  on." 

We  were  into  our  clothes  in  no  time,  hooking  each 
other  up,  laughing  like  girls. 

The  first  of  us  was  just  beginning  to  appear,  when 
the  two  big  cars  came  breathing  up  to  the  gate. 

In  came  the  Hewitts,  and  land  —  in  one  glance  I 
saw  there  was  nothing  about  them  that  was  like 
what  we'd  always  imagined  —  nothing  grand  or 
sweeping  or  rustling  or  cold.  I  guess  that  kind  of 
city  folks  has  gone  out  of  fashion,  never  to  come 
back.  The  Hewitts  didn't  seem  like  city  folks  at 
all  —  they  seemed  just  like  folks.  It  made  a  real 
nice  surprise.  And  we  all  got  to  be  folks,  short 
off.  For  when  I  ushered  them  into  my  parlor,  there 
were  all  the  wire  dress-forms  setting  around  with 
nothing  whatever  on. 

"  My  land,"  I  says,  "  we  might  as  well  own  right 
up  to  what  we  done,"  I  says.  And  I  told  them, 
frank.  And  I  dunno  which  enjoyed  it  the  most, 
them  or  us. 

The  minute  I  saw  him,  I  knew  him.     I  mean  The 


150         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Nice  Voice.  I'd  have  known  him  by  his  voice  if  I 
hadn't  been  acquainted  with  his  face,  but  I  was. 
He  was  the  picture  that  wasn't  on  Miss  Marjorie 
Mayhew's  dresser  any  longer  —  and,  even  more 
than  the  picture,  he  looked  like  what  you  mean 
when  you  say  u  man."  When  I  was  introduced  to 
him  I  wanted  to  say:  u  How  do  you  do.  Oh! 
I'm  glad  you  look  like  that.  She  deserves  it !  " 

But  even  if  I  could,  I'd  have  been  struck  too  dumb 
to  do  it.  For  I  caught  his  name  —  and  he  was  the 
only  son  of  the  Hewitts,  and  heir-evident  to  all  his 
folks. 

The  only  fault  I  could  lay  to  his  door  was  that  he 
didn't  have  any  eyes.  Not  for  us.  He  was  look- 
ing every-which-way,  and  I  knew  for  who.  So  as 
soon  as  I  could,  I  slips  up  to  him  and  I  says  merely : 

"  This  way." 

He  was  right  there  with  me,  in  a  second.  I  took 
him  up  the  stairs,  and  tapped  at  my  front  chamber 
door. 

She  was  setting  in  there  on  her  couch,  red  as  a 
red  rose  this  time.  And  when  she  see  who  was  with 
me,  she  looked  more  so  than  ever.  But  she  spoke 
gentle  and  self-possessed,  as  women  can  that's  been 
trained  that  way  all  their  days. 

"  How  do  you  do?  "  says  she,  and  gave  him  her 
hand,  stranger-cool. 

That  man  —  he  pays  no  more  attention  to  me 
than  if  I  hadn't  been  there.  He  just  naturally 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      151 

walked  across  the  room,  put  his  hands  on  her  shoul- 
ders, looked  deep  into  her  eyes  for  long  enough  to 
read  what  she  couldn't  help  being  there,  and  then 
he  took  her  in  his  arms. 

I  slipped  out  and  pulled  the  door  to.  And  in 
the  hall  I  met  from  six  to  seven  folks  coming  up  to 
take  their  things  off,  and  heading  straight  for  the 
front  chamber.  I  stood  myself  up  in  front  of  the 
door. 

"  Walk  right  into  my  room,"  says  I  —  though  I 
knew  full  well  that  it  looked  like  Bedlam,  and  that 
I  was  letting  good  housekeepers  in  to  see  it.  And 
so  they  done.  And,  more  heads  appearing  on  the 
stairs  about  then,  I  see  that  what  I  had  to  do  was 
to  stand  where  I  was  —  if  they  were  to  have  their 
Great  Five  Minutes  in  peace. 

Could  anybody  have  helped  doing  that?  And 
could  anybody  have  helped  hearing  that  little  mur- 
mur that  came  to  me  from  that  room? 

"  Dearest,"  he  said,  "  how  could  you  —  how 
could  you  do  like  this?  I've  looked  everywhere  — " 

"  I  thought,"  she  said,  "  that  you'd  never  come. 
I  thought  you  weren't  looking." 

"  You  owe  me,"  he  told  her  solemnly,  "  six  solid 
weeks  of  my  life.  I've  done  nothing  since  you 
left." 

"  When  a  month  went  by,"  she  owned  up,  "  and 
you  hadn't  come,  I  —  I  took  your  picture  off  my 
bureau." 


152         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Where'd  you  put  it?  "  he  asks,  stern. 

She  laughed  out,  kind  of  light  and  joyous. 

"  In  my  hand-bag,"  says  she. 

Then  they  were  still  a  minute. 

"  Walk  right  to  the  left,  and  left  your  things 
right  on  my  bed  ..."  I  heard  myself  saying  over, 
crazy,  to  some  folks.  But  then  of  course  you  al- 
ways do  expect  your  hostess  to  be  more  or  less 
crazy-headed,  and  nobody  thought  anything  of  it,  I 
guess. 

They  came  out  in  just  a  minute,  and  we  went 
down  the  stairs  together.  And  on  the  way  down  he 
says  to  her: 

"  Remember,  you're  going  back  with  us  to-night. 
And  I'm  never  going  to  let  you  out  of  my  sight  again 


ever." 


And  she  said:  "  But  I  know  why.  Because  it'd 
be  hard  work  to  make  me  go.  .  .  ." 

At  the  foot  of  the  stairs  Mis'  Holcomb  met  me, 
her  silk  dress's  collar  under  one  ear. 

"  Have  you  heard?  "  she  says.  "  We  didn't  have 
much  exhibit,  but  the  Hewitts  have  give  us  enough 
for  the  park  —  outright." 

I'd  wanted  that  park  like  I'd  wanted  nothing  else 
for  the  town.  But  I  hardly  sensed  what  she  said. 
I  was  looking  acrost  to  where  those  two  stood,  and 
pretty  soon  I  walked  over  to  them. 

"  Is  this  the  Miss  Mayhew  you  were  referring 
to?  "  I  ask'  him,  demure. 


THE  ART  AND  LOAN  DRESS  EXHIBIT      153 

"  This,"  says  he,  his  nice  eyes  twinkling,  "  is  the 
only  Miss  Mayhew  there  is." 

'  You  may  say  that  now,"  says  I  then,  bold. 
"  But  —  I  see  you  won't  call  her  that  long." 

He  looked  at  me,  and  she  looked  at  me,  and 
they  both  put  out  their  hands  to  me. 

"  I  see,"  says  he,  "  that  we  three  understand  one 
another  perfectly." 


ROSE  PINK1 

T.he  Art  and  Loan  Dress  Exhibit  recalls  a  story 
of  my  early  association  with  Calliope  Marsh  in 
Friendship  Village,  when  yet  she  was  not  well  known 
to  me  —  her  humanity,  her  habit  of  self -giving,  her 
joy  in  life  other  than  her  own. 

Afterward  I  knew  that  I  had  never  seen  a  woman 
more  keenly  and  constantly  a  participant  in  the  lives 
of  others.  She  was  hardly  individuated  at  all.  She 
suffered  and  joyed  with  others,  literally,  more  than 
she  did  in  her  "  own  "  affairs.  I  now  feel  certain 
that  before  we  can  reach  the  individualism  which  we 
crave  —  and  have  tried  to  claim  too  soon  —  we 
must  first  know  such  participation  as  hers  in  all  con- 
scious life  —  in  all  life,  conscious  or  unconscious. 

This  is  that  early  story,  as  I  then  wrote  it  down: 

CALLIOPE  MARSH  had  been  having  a  "  small 
company."  Though  nominally  she  was  hostess  to 
twenty  of  us,  invited  there  for  six  o'clock  supper, 
yet  we  did  not  see  Calliope  until  supper  was  done. 
Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes  had  opened  the  door  for  us, 
had  told  us  to  "  walk  up-stairs  to  the  right  an'  lay 
aside  your  things,"  and  had  marshaled  us  to  the  din- 
ing-room and  so  to  chairs  outlining  the  room.  And 

1  Copyright,   1913,  The  Delineator. 

154 


ROSE  PINK  155 

there  the  daughters  of  most  of  the  guests  had  served 
us  while  Calliope  stayed  in  the  kitchen,  with  Han- 
nah Hager  to  help  her,  seasoning  and  stirring  and 
"  getting  it  onto  the  plates."  Afterward,  flushed 
and,  I  thought,  lovably  nervous,  'Calliope  came  in 
to  receive  our  congratulations  and  presently  to  hear 
good-nights.  But  I,  who  should  have  hurried  home 
to  Madame  Josephine,  the  modiste  from  town  who 
that  week  called  my  soul  her  own,  waited  for  a  little 
to  talk  it  over  —  partly,  I  confess,  because  a  fine, 
driving  rain  had  begun  to  fall. 

We  sat  in  the  kitchen  while  Calliope  ate  her  own 
belated  supper  on  a  corner  of  the  kitchen  table; 
and  on  another  corner,  thin,  tired  little  Hannah 
Hager  ate  hers.  And,  as  is  our  way  in  Friendship, 
Hannah  talked  it  over,  too  —  that  little  maid-of- 
all-work,  who  was  nowhere  attached  in  service,  but 
lived  in  a  corner  of  Grandma  Hawley's  cottage  and 
went  tirelessly  about  the  village  ministering  to  the 
needs  of  us  all. 

"  Everything  you  hed  was  lovely,  Miss  Marsh," 
Hannah  said  with  shining  content  and  a  tired  sigh. 
"  You  didn't  hev  a  single  set-back,  did  you?  " 

"  Well,  I  dunno,"  Calliope  doubted;  "  it  all  tastes 
like  so  much  chips  to  me,  even  now.  I  was  kind  o' 
nervous  over  my  pressed  ham,  too.  I  noticed  two 
o'  the  plates  didn't  eat  all  theirs,  but  the  girls  couldn't 
rec'lect  whose  they  was.  Did  you  notice?" 

"  No,   sir,  I  didn't,"  Hannah  confessed  with   a 


156        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

shake  of  the  head  at  herself.  "  I  did  notice,"  she 
amended  brightly,  u  that  Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes 
didn't  make  way  with  all  her  cream,  but  I  guess  ice- 
cream don't  agree  with  her.  She's  got  a  kind  o' 
peculiar  stomach." 

"  Well-a,  anybody  hev  on  anything  new?"  Cal- 
liope asked  with  interest.  "  I  couldn't  tell  a  stitch 
anybody  hed  on.  I  don't  seem  to  sense  things  when 
I  hev  company." 

There  was  no  need  for  me  to  give  evidence. 

"  Oh !  "  Hannah  said,  as  we  say  when  we  mean 
a  thing  very  much,  "  didn't  you  see  Lyddy  Eider?  " 

"  Seems  to  me  I  did  take  it  in  she  hed  on  some- 
thing pink,"  Calliope  remembered. 

Little  Hannah  stood  up  in  her  excitement. 

"  Pink,  Miss  Marsh!  "  she  said.  "  I  should  say 
it  was.  Pink  with  cloth,  w'ite.  The  w'ite,"  Han- 
nah illustrated  it,  "  went  here  an'  so,  in  points.  In 
between  was  lace  an'  little  ribbon,  pink  too.  An' 
all  up  so  was  buttons.  An'  it  all  rustled  w'en  she 
stirred  'round.  An'  it  laid  smooth  down,  like  it 
was  starched  an'  ironed,  an'  then  all  to  once  it'd 
slimpse  into  folds,  soft  as  soft.  An'  every  way  she 
stood  it  looked  nice  —  it  didn't  pucker  nor  skew 
nor  hang  wrong.  It  was  dressmaker-made,  ma'am," 
Hannah  concluded  impressively.  "  An'  it  looked 
like  the  pictures  in  libr'ry  books.  My!  You'd 
ought  'a'  seen  Gramma  Hawley.  She  fair  et  Lydia 
up  with  lookin'  at  her." 


ROSE  PINK  157 

I,  who  was  not  yet  acquainted  with  every  one  in 
Friendship,  had  already  observed  the  two  that  day 
—  brown,  bent  Grandma  Hawley  and  the  elabor- 
ately self-possessed  Miss  Eider,  with  a  conspicuously 
high-pitched  voice,  who  lived  in  the  city  and  was  oc- 
casionally a  guest  in  the  village.  The  girl,  who  1 
gathered  had  once  lived  in  Friendship,  was  like  a 
living  proof  that  all  village  maids  may  become  prin- 
cesses ;  and  the  brooding  tenderness  of  the  old  woman 
had  impressed  me  as  might  a  mourning  dove  moth- 
ering some  sprightly  tanager. 

"  Gramma  Hawley  brought  her  up  from  a  little 
thing,"  Calliope  explained  to  me  now,  "  and  a  rich 
Mis'  Eider,  from  the  city,  she  adopted  her,  and 
Gramma  let  her  go.  I  guess  it  near  killed  Gramma 
to  do  it  —  but  she'd  always  been  one  to  like  nice 
things  herself,  and  she  couldn't  get  them,  so  she  see 
what  k'd  mean  to  Lyddy.  Lyddy's  got  pretty  proud, 
she's  hed  so  much  to  do  with,  but  she  comes  back  to 
see  Gramma  sometimes,  I'll  say  that  for  her. 
Didn't  anybody  else  hev  on  anything  new?  " 

"  No,"  Hannah  knew  positively,  "  they  all  come 
out  in  the  same  old  togs.  When  the  finger-bowl 
started  I  run  up  in  the  hall  an'  peeked  down  the 
register,  so's  to  see  'em  pass  out  o'  the  room.  Com- 
p'ny  clo'es  don't  change  much  here  in  Friendship. 
Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes  says  yest'day,  when  we  was 
ironin' :  '  Folks,'  she  says,  '  don't  dress  as  much 
here  in  Friendship  as  I  wish't  we  did.  Land  knows,' 


158        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Mis'  Sykes  says,  '  /  don't  dress,  neither.  But  I  like 
to  see  it  done.' ' 

Calliope,  who  is  sixty  and  has  a  rosy,  wrinkled 
face,  looked  sidewise  down  the  long  vista  of  the 
cooking-stove  coals. 

"  Like  to  see  it  done!  "  she  repeated.  "  Why,  I 
get  so  raving  hungry  to  see  some  colored  dress-goods 
on  somebody  seem's  though  I'd  fly.  Black  and 
brown  and  gray  —  gray  and  brown  and  black  hung 
on  to  every  woman  in  Friendship.  Every  one  of 
us  has  our  clo'es  picked  out  so  everlastin'  durable" 

Hannah  sympathetically  giggled  with,  "  Don't 
they,  though?  " 

"  My  grief!  "  Calliope  exclaimed.  "  It  reminds 
me,  I  got  my  mother's  calicoes  down  to  pass  'round 
and  I  never  thought  to  take  them  in." 

She  went  to  her  new  golden  oak  kitchen  cabinet 

—  a  birthday  gift  to  Calliope  from  the  Friendship 
church  for  her  services  at  its  organ  —  and  brought 
us  her  mother's  "  calicoes  " —  a  huge  box  of  pieces 
left  from  every  wool  and  lawn  and  "  morning  house- 
work dress  "  worn  by  the  Marshes,  quick  and  passed, 
and  by  their  friends.     Calliope  knew  them  all;  and 
I  listened  idly  while  the  procession  went  by  us  in 
sad-colored  fabrics  — "  black  and  brown  and  gray 

—  gray  and  brown  and  black." 

I  think  that  my  attention  may  have  wandered  a 
little,  for  I  was  recalled  by  some  slight  stir  made 
by  Hannah  Hager.  She  had  risen  and  was  bending 


ROSE  PINK  159 

toward  Calliope,  with  such  leaping  wistfulness  in  her 
eyes  that  I  followed  her  look.  And  I  saw  among 
the  pieces,  like  a  bright  breast  in  sober  plumage,  a 
square  of  chambray  in  an  exquisite  color  of  rose. 

"  Oh  — "  said  little  Hannah  softly,  "  hain't  that 
just  beauti-ful?  " 

"Like  it,  Hannah?"  Calliope  asked. 

"  My!  "  said  the  little  maid  fervently. 

"  It  was  a  dress  Gramma  Hawley  made  for  Lyddy 
Eider  when  she  was  a  little  girl,"  Calliope  explained. 
"  I  dunno  but  what  it  was  the  last  one  she  made  for 
her.  Pretty,  ain't  it?  Lyddy  always  seemed  to 
hanker  some  after  pink.  Gramma  mostly  always 
got  her  pink."  Calliope  glanced  at  Hannah,  over- 
shoulder.  "  Why  don't  you  get  a  pink  one  for 
then?  "  she  asked  abruptly;  and,  "  When  is  it  to  be, 
Hannah?  "  she  challenged  her,  teasingly,  as  we  tease 
for  only  one  cause. 

On  which  I  had  pleasure  in  the  sudden  rose-pink 
of  Hannah's  face,  and  she  sank  back  in  her  seat  at 
the  table  corner  in  the  particular,  delicious  anguish 
that  comes  but  once. 

u  There,  there,"  said  Calliope  soothingly,  "  no 
need  to  turn  any  more  colors,  's  I  know  of.  Land, 
if  they  ain't  enough  sandwiches  left  to  fry  for  my 
dinner." 

When,  presently,  Calliope  and  I  were  in  the  din- 
ing-room and  I  was  watching  her  "  redd  up  "  the 
table  while  Hannah  clattered  dishes  in  the  kitchen, 


160         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

I  asked  her  who  Hannah's  prince  might  be.  Cal- 
liope told  me  with  a  manner  of  triumph.  For  was 
he  not  Henry  Austin,  that  great,  good-looking  giant 
who  helped  in  the  post-office  store,  whose  baritone 
voice  was  the  making  of  the  church  choir  and  on 
whom  many  Friendship  daughters  would  not  have 
looked  unkindly? 

"I'm  so  glad  for  her,"  Calliope  said.  "She 
ain't  hed  many  to  love  besides  Gramma  Hawley  — 
and  Gramma's  so  wrapped  up  in  Lyddy  Eider.  And 
yet  I  feel  bad  for  Hannah,  too.  All  their  lives  folks 
here'll  likely  say :  '  How'd  he  come  to  marry  her?  ' 
It's  hard  to  be  that  kind  of  woman.  I  wish't  Han- 
nah could  hev  a  wedding  that  would  show  'em  she  is 
somebody.  I  wish't  she  could  hev  a  wedding  dress 
that  would  show  them  how  pretty  she  is  —  a  dress  all 
nice,  slim  lines  and  folds  laid  in  in  the  right  places 
and  little  unexpected  trimmings  like  you  wouldn't 
think  of  having  if  you  weren't  real  up  in  dress," 
Calliope  explained.  "  A  dress  like  Lyddy  Eider  al- 
ways has  on." 

"  Calliope !  "  I  said  then,  laughing.  "  I  believe 
you  would  be  a  regular  fashion  plate,  if  you  could 
afford  it." 

"  I  would,"  she  gravely  admitted,  "  I'm  afraid  I 
would.  I  love  nice  clothes  and  I  just  worship  col- 
ors." She  hesitated,  looking  at  me  with  a  manner 
of  shyness.  "  Sit  still  a  minute,  will  you?"  she 
said,  "  I'd  like  to  show  you  something." 


ROSE  PINK  161 

She  went  upstairs  and  I  listened  to  Hannah  Hager, 
clattering  kitchen  things  and  singing: 

"  He  promised  to  buy  me  a  bunch  of  blue  ribbons, 
To  tie  up  my  bonny  brown  ha  —  ir." 

Pink  chambray  and  the  love  of  blue  ribbons  and 
Miss  Lydia  Eider  in  her  dress  that  was  "  dress- 
maker-made." These  I  turned  in  my  mind,  and  I 
found  myself  thinking  of  my  visit  to  the  town  in  the 
next  week,  for  which  Madame  Josephine  was  pre- 
paring; and  of  how  certain  elegancies  are  there  offi- 
cially recognized  instead  of  being  merely  divined  by 
the  wistful  amateur  in  color  and  textile.  How  Cal- 
liope and  Hannah  would  have  delighted,  I  thought 
idly,  in  the  town's  way  of  pretty  things  to  wear,  such 
as  Josephine  could  make;  the  way  that  Lydia  Eider 
knew,  in  her  frocks  that  were  "  dressmaker-made." 
Indeed,  Calliope  and  Hannah  and  Lydia  Eider  had 
been  physically  cast  in  the  same  mold  of  prettiness 
and  of  proportion,  but  only  Lydia  had  come  into  her 
own. 

And  then  Calliope  came  down,  and  she  was  bring- 
ing a  long,  white  box.  She  sat  before  me  with  the 
box  on  her  knee  and  I  saw  that  she  was  flushing  like 
a  girl. 

"  I  expect,"  she  said,  "  you'll  think  I'm  real 
worldly-minded.  I  dunno.  Mebbe  I  am.  But 
when  I  get  out  in  company  and  see  everybody  wear- 
ing the  dark  shades  like  they  do  here  in  Friendship 


162         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

so's  their  dresses  won't  show  dirt,  I  declare  I  want 
to  stand  up  and  tell  'em:  'Colors!  Colors! 
What'd  the  Lord  put  colors  in  the  world  for  ?  Burn 
up  your  black  and  brown  and  gray  and  get  into  some- 
thin'  happy-colored^  and  see  the  difference  it'll  make 
in  the  way  you  feel  inside.'  I  get  so,"  Calliope  said 
solemnly,  "  that  when  I  put  on  my  best  black  taffeta 
with  the  white  turnovers,  I  declare  I  could  slit  it  up 
the  back  seam.  And  I've  felt  that  way  a  long  time. 
And  that's  what  made  me  — " 

She  fingered  the  white  box  and  lifted  the  cover 
from  a  mass  of  tissue-paper. 

"  When  Uncle  Ezra  Marsh  died  sixteen  years  ago 
last  Summer,"  she  said,  "  he  left  me  a  little  bit  of 
money  —  just  a  little  dab,  but  enough  to  mend  the 
wood-shed  roof  or  buy  a  new  cook-stove  or  do  any 
of  the  useful  things  that's  always  staring  you  in  the 
face.  And  I  turned  my  back  flat  on  every  one  of 
them.  And  I  put  the  money  in  my  pocket  and  went 
into  the  city.  And  there,"  said  Calliope  breath- 
lessly, "  I  bought  this." 

She  unwrapped  it  from  its  tissues,  and  it  was  yards 
and  yards  of  lustrous,  exquisite  soft  silk,  colored 
rose-pink,  and  responding  in  folds  almost  tenderly 
to  the  hand  that  touched  it. 

"  It's  mine,"  Calliope  said,  "  mine.  My  dress. 
And  I  haven't  ever  hed  the  sheer,  moral  courage  to 
get  it  made  up." 

And  that  I  could  well  understand.     For  though 


ROSE  PINK  163 

Calliope's  delicacy  of  figure  and  feature  would 
have  been  well  enough  become  by  the  soft  pink, 
Friendship  would  have  lifted  -its  hPands  to  see  her 
so  and  she  would  instantly  have  been  "  talked 
about." 

"  Seems  to  me,"  Calliope  said,  smoothing  the 
silk,  "  that  if  I  could  have  on  a  dress  like  this  I'd 
feel  another  kind  of  being  —  sort  o'  free  and  lib- 
erty-like. Of  course,"  she  added  hurriedly,  "  I 
know  well  enough  a  pink  dress  ain't  what-you-might- 
say  important.  But  land,  land,  how  I'd  like  one  on 
me  in  company!  Ain't  it  funny,"  she  added,  "in 
the  city  nobody'd  think  anything  of  my  wearing  it. 
In  the  city  they  sort  of  seem  to  know  colors  ain't 
wicked,  so's  they  look  nice.  I  use'  to  think,"  Cal- 
liope added,  laughing  a  little,  "  I'd  hev  it  made  up 
and  go  to  town  and  wear  it  on  the  street.  All  alone. 
Even  if  it  was  a  black  street.  I  guess  you'll  think 
I'm  terrible  foolish." 

But  with  that  the  idea  which  had  come  to  me 
vaguely  and  as  an  impossibility,  took  shape;  and  I 
poured  it  out  to  Calliope  as  a  thing  possible,  de- 
sirable, inevitable. 

"  Calliope !  "  I  said.  "  Bring  the  silk  to  my 
house.  Let  Madame  Josephine  make  it  up.  And 
next  week  come  with  me  to  the  city  —  for  the  opera. 
We  will  have  a  box  —  and  afterward  supper  — 
and  you  shall  wear  the  pink  gown  —  and  a  long, 
black  silk  coat  of  mine  — " 


164         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"You're  fooling  —  you're  fooling!"  Calliope 
cried,  trembling. 

But  I  made  her  know  how  in  earnest  I  was;  for, 
indeed,  on  the  instant  my  mind  was  made  up  that 
the  thing  must  be,  that  the  lonely  pink  dress  must 
see  the  light  and  with  it  Calliope's  shy  hopes,  long 
cherished.  And  so,  before  I  left  her,  it  was  ar- 
ranged. She  had  agreed  to  come  next  morning  to 
my  house,  if  Madame  Josephine  were  willing,  bring- 
ing the  rose-pink  silk. 

"  Me !  "  she  said  at  last.  "  Why,  me !  Why, 
it's  enough  to  make  all  the  me's  I've  been  turn  over 
in  their  graves.  And  I  guess  they  hev  turned  and 
come  trooping  out,  young  again." 

Then,  as  she  stood  up,  letting  the  soft  stuff  un- 
wind and  fall  in  shining  abandon,  we  heard  a  little 
noise  —  tapping,  insistent.  It  was  very  near  to  us 
—  quite  in  the  little  passage;  and  as  Calliope  turned 
with  the  silk  still  in  her  arms  the  door  swung  back 
and  there  stood  Grandma  Hawley.  She  was  leaning 
on  her  thick  stick,  and  her  gray  lace  cap  was  all 
awry  and  a  mist  of  the  fine,  driving  rain  was  on 
her  gray  hair. 

"  I  got  m'  feet  wet,"  she  said  querulously.  "  M' 
feet  are  wet.  Lyddy's  gone  to  Mis'  Sykes's.  I  come 
back  to  stay  a  spell  till  it  dries  off  some  — " 

"  Grandma!"  Calliope  cried,  hurrying  to  her, 
"  I  didn't  hear  you  come  in.  I  never  heard  you. 


ROSE  PINK  165 

Come  out  by  the  kitchen  fire  and  set  your  feet  in  the 


oven." 


Calliope  had  tossed  the  silk  on  the  table  and  had 
run  to  the  old  woman  with  outstretched  hand;  but 
the  outstretched  hand  Grandma  Hawley  did  not  see. 
She  stood  still,  looking  by  Calliope  with  a  manner 
rather  than  an  expression  of  questioning. 

"What  is't?"  she  asked,  nodding  direction. 

Calliope  understood,  and  she  slightly  lifted  her 
brows  and  her  thin  shoulders,  and  seemed  to  glance 
at  me. 

"  It's  some  pink  for  a  dress,  gramma,"  she  said. 

Grandma  Hawley  came  a  little  nearer,  and  stood, 
a  neat,  bent  figure  in  rusty  black,  looking,  down  at 
the  sumptuous,  shining  lengths.  Then  she  laid  her 
brown,  veined  hand  upon  the  silk — and  I  remem- 
ber now  her  fingers,  being  pricked  and  roughened 
by  her  constant  needle,  caught  and  rubbed  on  the 
soft  stuff. 

"  My  soul,"  she  said,  "  it's  pink  silk." 

She  lifted  her  face  to  Calliope,  the  perpetual 
trembling  of  her  head  making  her  voice  come  trem- 
ulously. 

"  That's  what  Abe  Hawley  was  always  talkin' 
when  I  married  him,"  she  said.  "  '  A  pink  silk 
dress  fer  ye,  Minnie.  A  fine  pink  silk  to  set  ye 
off,'  s'  'e  over  an'  over.  I  thought  I  was  a-goin'  to 
hev  it.  I  hed  the  style  all  picked  out  in  my  head. 


166         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

I  know  I  use'  to  lay  awake  nights  an'  cut  it  out. 
But,  time  the  cookin'  things  was  paid  for,  the  first 
baby  come  —  an'  then  the  other  three  to  do  for. 
An'  Abe  he  didn't  say  pink  silk  after  the  fourth. 
But  I  use'  to  cut  it  out  in  the  night,  fer  all  that.  I 
dunno  but  I  cut  it  out  yet,  when  I  can't  get  to 
sleep  an'  my  head  feels  bad.  My  head  ain't  right. 
It  bothers  me  some,  hummin'  and  ringin'.  Las' 
night  m'  head  — " 

"  There,  there,  gramma,"  said  Calliope,  and  took 
her  arm.  "  You  come  along  with  me  and  set  your 
feet  in  the  oven." 

I  had  her  other  arm,  and  we  turned  toward  the 
kitchen.  And  we  were  hushed  as  if  we  had  heard 
some  futile,  unfulfilled  wish  of  the  dead  still  beating 
impotent  wings. 

In  the  kitchen  doorway  Hannah  Hager  was  stand- 
ing. She  must  have  seen  that  glowing,  heaped-up 
silk  on  the  table,  but  it  did  not  even  hold  her  glance. 
For  she  had  heard  what  Grandma  Hawley  had  been 
saying,  and  it  had  touched  her,  who  was  so  jealously 
devoted  to  the  old  woman,  perhaps  even  more  than 
it  had  touched  Calliope  and  me. 

"  Miss  Marsh,  now,"  Hannah  tried  to  say,  "  shall 
I  put  the  butter  that's  left  in  the  cookin'-butter  jar?  " 
And  then  her  little  features  were  caught  here  and 
there  in  the  puckers  of  a  very  child's  weeping,  and 
she  stood  before  us  as  a  child  might  stand,  crying 
softly  without  covering  her  face.  She  held  out  a 


ROSE  PINK  167 

hand  to  the  old  woman,  and  Calliope  and  I  let  her 
lead  her  to  the  stove.  My  heart  went  out  to 
the  little  maid  for  her  tears  and  to  Calliope  for  the 
sympathy  in  her  eyes. 

Grandma  Hawley  was  talking  on. 

"  I  must  'a'  got  a  little  cold,"  she  said  plaintively. 
"  It  always  settles  in  my  head.  My  head's  real 
bad.  An'  now  I  got  m'  feet  wet  — " 

II 

To  Madame  Josephine,  the  modiste  who  some- 
times comes  to  me  with  her  magic  touch,  transform- 
ing this  and  that,  I  confided  something  of  my  plans 
for  Calliope,  asked  her  if  she  would  do  what  she 
could.  Her  kindly,  emotional  nature  responded  to 
the  situation  as  to  a  kind  of  challenge. 

"Bien!"  she  cried.  "  We  shall  see.  You  say 
she  is  slim  —  petite  —  with  some  little  grace  ? 
BienI" 

So  when,  next  day,  Calliope  arrived  at  my  house 
with  her  parcel  brought  forth  for  the  first  time  in 
sixteen  years,  she  found  madame  and  me  both  tip- 
toe with  excitement.  And  from  some  bewildering 
plates  madame  explained  how  she  would  cut  and 
suit  and  "  correct  "  mademoiselle. 

u  The  effect  shall  be  long,  slim,  excellent.  Soft 
folds  from  one's  waist  —  so.  From  one's  shoulder 
—  so.  A  line  of  velvet  here  and  here  and  down. 
Bienf  Mademoiselle  will  look  younger  than  ev-ery- 


1 68         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

one !  //  mademoiselle  would  wave  ze  hair  back  a 
ver'  little  —  so?  "  the  French  woman  delicately  ad- 
vanced. 

"  Ma'moiselle,"  returned  Calliope  recklessly, 
"  will  do  anything  you  want  her  to,  short  of  a  pink 
rose  over  one  ear.  My  land,  I  never  hed  a  dress 
before  that  I  didn't  hev  to  skimp  the  pattern  and 
make  it  up  less  according  to  my  taste  than  according 
to  my  cloth." 

That  day  I  sent  to  the  city  for  a  box  at  the  opera. 
I  chose  u  Faust,"  and  smiled  as  I  planned  to  sing  the 
Jewel  Song  for  Calliope  before  we  went,  and  to 
laugh  at  her  in  her  surprising  role  of  Butterfly. 
"  Ah,  je  ris  de  me  voir  si  belle."  A  lower  prosce- 
nium box,  a  modest  suite  at  a  comfortable  hotel,  a 
little  supper,  a  cab  —  I  planned  it  all  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  watching  her;  and  all  this  would,  I  knew,  be 
given  its  significance  by  the  wearing  of  the  anomal- 
ous, rosy  gown.  And  I  loved  Calliope  for  her 
weakness  as  we  love  the  whip-poor-will  for  his  little 
catching  of  the  breath. 

On  the  day  that  our  tickets  came  Calliope  appeared 
before  me  in  some  anxiety. 

"  Calliope,"  I  said,  without  observing  this,  "  our 
opera  box  is,  so  to  speak,  here." 

But  instead  of  the  light  in  her  face  that  I  had 
expected : 

"What  night?  "  she  abruptly  demanded. 

"  For  '  Faust,'  on  Wednesday,"  I  told  her. 


ROSE  PINK  169 

And  instead  of  her  delight  of  which  I  had  made 
sure: 

"  Will  the  six-ten  express  get  us  in  the  city  too 
late?  "  she  wanted  to  know. 

And  when  I  had  agreed  to  the  six-ten  express: 

"  It's  all  right  then,"  she  said  in  relief.  "  They 
can  hev  it  a  little  earlier  and  take  the  six-ten  them- 
selves instead  of  the  accommodation.  Hannah  and 
Henry's  going  to  get  married  a'  Wednesday,"  she 
explained.  u  I  hev  to  be  here  for  that." 

Then  she  told  me  of  the  simple  plan  for  Hannah 
Hager's  marriage  to  her  good-looking  giant.  Nat- 
urally, Grandma  Hawley  could  not  think  of  "  giv- 
ing Hannah  a  wedding,"  so  these  poor  little  plans 
had  been  for  some  time  wandering  about  unpar- 
ented. 

"  I  wanted,"  Calliope  said,  "  she  should  be  mar- 
ried in  the  church  with  Virginia  creeper  on  the  pew 
arms,  civilized.  But  Hannah  said  that'd  be  putting 
on  airs  and  she'd  be  so  scairt  she  couldn't  be  solemn. 
Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes,  she  invited  her  real  cordial 
to  be  married  in  her  sitting-room,  but  Hannah 
spunked  up  and  wouldn't.  '  A  sitting-room  wed- 
din','  s'  she  to  me,  private,  '  'd  be  like  bein'  baptized 
in  the  pantry.  A  parlor,'  s'  she,  '  's  the  only  true 
place  for  a  wedding.  And  I  haven't  no  parlor,  so 
we'll  go  to  the  minister's  and  stand  up  in  his  parlor. 
Do  you  think,'  s'  she  to  me,  real  pitiful,  '  Henry  can 
respec'  me  with  no  place  to  set  m'  foot  in  to  be  mar- 


170        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

ried  but  jus'  the  public  parsonage?'  Poor  little 
thing!  Her  wedding-dress  is  nothing  but  a  last 
year's  mull  with  a  sprig  in,  either.  And  her  trav- 
eling-dress to  go  to  the  city  is  her  reg'lar  brown 
Sunday  suit." 

"And  they  are  going  to  the  minister's?"  I 
asked. 

"  Well,  no,"  Calliope  answered  apologetically. 
"  I  asked  them  to  be  married  at  my  house.  I  never 
thought  about  the  opera  when  I  done  it.  I  never 
thought  about  anything  but  that  poor  child.  I  guess 
you'll  think  I'm  real  flighty.  But  I  always  think 
when  two's  married  in  the  parsonage  and  the  man 
pays  the  minister,  it's  like  the  bride  is  just  the  groom's 
guest  at  the  cer'mony.  And  it  ain't  real  dignified 
for  her,  seems  though." 

I  knew  well  what  this  meant:  That  Calliope 
would  have  "  asked  in  a  few  "  and  "  stirred  up  " 
this  and  that  delectable,  and  gone  to  no  end  of  trou- 
ble and  an  expense  which  she  could  ill  afford.  Un- 
less, as  she  was  wont  to  say:  '  When  it  comes  to 
doing  for  other  people  there  ain't  such  a  word  as 
'  afford.'  You  just  go  ahead  and  do  it  and  keep 
some  rational  yourself,  and  the  afford  '11  sort  o' 
bloom  out  right,  same's  a  rose." 

So  for  Hannah,  Calliope  had  caused  things  to 
"  bloom  right,  same's  a  rose,"  as  one  knew  by  Han- 
nah's happy  face.  On  Tuesday  she  was  helping  at 
my  house  ("  Brides  always  like  extry  money,"  Cal- 


ROSE  PINK  171 

Hope  had  advanced  when  I  had  questioned  the  pro- 
priety of  asking  her  to  iron  on  the  day  before  her 
marriage)  and,  on  going  unexpectedly  to  the  kitchen 
I  came  on  Hannah  with  a  patent  flat-iron  in  one 
hand  and  a  piece  of  beeswax  in  the  other,  and  Henry, 
her  good-looking  giant,  was  there  also  and  was 
frankly  holding  her  in  his  arms.  I  liked  him  for 
his  manly  way  when  he  saw  me  and  most  of  all  that 
he  did  not  wholly  release  her  but,  with  one  arm 
about  her,  contrived  a  kind  of  bow  to  me.  But  it 
was  Hannah  who  spoke. 

"  Oh,  ma'am,"  she  said  shyly,  "  I  hope  you'll 
overlook.  We've  hed  an  awful  time  findin'  any 
place  to  keep  company,  only  walkin'  'round  the  high- 
school  yard!  " 

My  heart  was  still  warm  within  me  at  the  little 
scene  as  I  went  upstairs  to  see  Calliope  in  her  final 
fitting  of  the  rose-pink  gown,  the  work  on  which 
had  gone  on  apace.  And  I  own  that,  as  I  saw  her 
standing  before  my  long  triple  mirrors,  I  was 
amazed.  The  rosy  gown  suited  the  little  body  won- 
derfully and  with  her  gray  hair  and  delicate  bright- 
ness of  cheeks,  she  looked  like  some  figure  on  a  fan, 
exquisitely  and  picturesquely  painted.  The  gown 
was,  as  Calliope  had  said  that  a  gown  should  be, 
"  all  nice,  slim  lines  and  folds  laid  in  in  the  right 
places,  and  little  unexpected  trimmings  like  you 
wouldn't  think  of  having  them  if  you  wasn't  real  up 
in  dress."  It  was  a  triumph  for  skillful  madame, 


172         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

who  had  wrought  with  her  impressionable  French 
heart  as  well  as  with  her  scissors. 

Calliope  laughed  as  she  looked  over-shoulder  in 
the  mirrors. 

"  My  soul,"  she  said,  "  I  feel  like  a  sparrow  with 
a  new  pink  tail !  I  declare,  the  dress  looks  more 
like  Lyddy  Eider  herself  than  it  looks  like  me.  Do 
you  think  I  look  enough  like  me  so's  you'd  sense  it 
was  me?  " 

"  Mademoiselle,"  said  Madame  Josephine  sim- 
ply, "  has  a  look  of  another  world." 

"  I  wish't  I  could  see  it  on  somebody,"  Calliope 
said  wistfully;  and  since  I  was  far  too  tall  and 
madame  not  sufficiently  "  slendaire,"  Calliope 
cried : 

"  There's  Hannah !  She's  downstairs  helping, 
ain't  she?  Couldn't  Hannah  come  upstairs  a  min- 
ute and  put  it  on?  We're  most  of  a  size!  " 

And  indeed  they  were,  as  I  had  noted,  cast  in  the 
same  mold  of  proportion  and  prettiness. 

So,  with  madame  just  leaving  for  the  city,  and 
I  obliged  to  go  down  to  the  village,  Calliope  and 
Hannah  Hager  were  left  alone  with  the  rose-pink 
silk  gown,  which  fitted  them  both.  Ought  I  not  to 
have  known  what  would  happen? 

And  yet  it  came  as  a  shock  to  me  when,  an  hour 
later,  as  I  passed  Calliope's  gate  on  my  way  home, 
she  ran  out  and  stood  before  me  in  some  unusual 
excitement. 


ROSE  PINK  173 

"  Do  they  take  back  your  opera  boxes?  "  she  de- 
manded. 

"  No,"  I  assured  her,  "  they  do  not.  Nor,"  I 
added  suspiciously,  "  do  folk  take  back  their  prom- 
ises, you  know,  Calliope !  " 

"  Well,"  she  said  miserably,  "  I  expec'  I've  done 
wrong  by  you.  The  righter  you  try  to  do  by  some 
folks  seems  's  though  the  wronger  it  comes  down  on 
others.  Oh,"  she  cried,  "  I  wish't  I  always  knew 
what  was  right!  But  I  can't  go  to  the  opera  and 
I  can't  sit  in  the  box.  Yes,  sir  —  I  guess  you'll 
think  I'm  real  flighty  and  I  dunno  but  what  I  am. 
But  I've  give  my  pink  silk  dress  to  Hannah  Hager 
for  her  wedding.  And  I've  lied  some.  I've  said  I 
meant  she  should  hev  it  all  along!  " 

in 

The  news  that  Calliope  was  to  "  give  Hannah 
Hager  a  wedding  "  was  received  in  Friendship  with 
unaffected  pleasure.  Every  one  liked  the  tireless 
little  thing,  and  those  who  could  do  so  sent  some- 
thing to  Calliope's  house  for  a  wedding-gift.  These 
things  Calliope  jealously  kept  secret,  intending  not 
to  let  Hannah  see  them  until  the  very  hour  of  the 
ceremony.  But  when  on  Wednesday,  some  while 
before  the  appointed  time,  I  went  to  the  house,  Cal- 
liope took  me  to  the  dining-room  where  the  gifts 
were  displayed. 

"  Some  of  'em's  real  peculiar,"  she  confided ;  "  some 


174        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

of  'em's  what  I  call  pick-up  presents  —  things  from 
'round  the  house,  you  know.  Mis'  Postmaster 
Sykes  she  sent  over  the  rug  with  the  running  dog  on, 
and  she's  hed  it  in  her  parlor  in  a  dark  corner  for 
years  an'  Hannah  must  have  cleaned  it  many's  the 
time.  Mis'  Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss  sent  her 
old  drop-leaf  mahogany  table,  being  she's  got  a  new 
oak.  The  Liberty  girls  sent  two  of  their  chickens, 
live,  for  the  wedding  lunch,  and  I  dassent  to  kill 
them  —  I'm  real  queer  like  that  —  so  I  hed  to  send 
for  the  groom,  and  he  run  up  noon-hour  and  done 
it.  And  so  on.  But  quite  a  few  things  are  new  — 
the  granite  iron  and  the  drip  coffee-pot  and  the 
sweeper  's  all  new.  And  did  you  hear  what 
Gramma  Hawley  done?  Drew  five  dollars  of  her 
burial  money  out  of  the  savings  bank  and  give  it  to 
Hannah  right  out.  You  know  how  Gramma  fixed 
it  —  she  had  Zittelhof  figger  up  her  funeral  ex- 
penses and  she  banked  the  sum,  high  and  dry,  and 
left  herself  just  bare  enough  to  live  on  coming  in. 
But  now  she  drew  the  five  out  and  give  Zittelhof 
to  understand  he'd  hev  to  skimp  some  on  her  coffin. 
Hannah  told  me,  crying  like  a  child  at  the  i-dee." 

Calliope  paused  impressively,  and  shook  her  head 
at  space. 

"  But  wouldn't  you  have  thought,"  she  demanded, 
"  that  Lyddy  Eider  might  have  give  Hannah  a  little 
something  to  wear?  One  of  her  old  dresses  for 
street  would  have  sent  Hannah  cloud-high,  and  over. 


ROSE  PINK  175 

I  s'pose  you  heard  what  she  did  send?  Mis'  Post- 
master Sykes  run  over  to  tell  me.  A  man  from  the 
city  come  up  by  trolley  sense  noon  to-day,  bringing 
a  rug  from  Lyddy.  Well,  of  course  a  rug's  a  rug," 
Calliope  admitted,  "  but  it  ain't  a  dress,  seem's 
though.  Hannah  knows  about  Gramma's  an'  Lyd- 
dy's,  but  she  don't  know  a  word  about  the  other 
presents.  I  do  admire  a  surprise." 

As  for  me,  I,  too,  love  a  surprise.  And  that  was 
why  I  had  sent  to  the  station  a  bag  packed  for  both 
Calliope  and  me ;  and'  I  meant,  when  the  wedding 
guests  should  have  gone,  to  take  no  denial,  but  to 
hurry  Calliope  into  her  "  black  grosgrain  with  the 
white  turnovers,"  and  with  her  to  catch  the  six-ten 
express  as  we  had  planned  aforetime.  For  pink 
silk  might  appear  and  disappear,  but  "  Faust " 
would  still  be  "  Faust." 

There  were  ten  guests  at  Hannah's  wedding, 
friends  of  hers  and  of  Henry's,  pleasantly  excited, 
pleasantly  abashed. 

"  And  not  one  word  do  they  know  about  the  pink 
silk,"  Calliope  whispered  me.  "  Hannah's  going 
to  come  with  it  on  —  I  let  her  take  my  tan  ulster 
to  wear  over  her,  walking  through  the  streets,  so. 
Do  you  know,"  she  said  earnestly,  "  if  it  wasn't 
for  disappointing  you  I  wouldn't  feel  anything  but 
good  about  that  dress?" 

"  Ah,  well,  I  won't  be  disappointed,"  I  prophesied 
confidently. 


1 76        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Grandma  Hawley  was  last  to  arrive.  And  the 
little  old  woman  was  in  some  stress  of  excitement, 
talking  incessantly  and  disconnectedly;  but  this  we 
charged  to  the  occasion. 

"  My  head  ain't  right,"  she  said.  "  It  ain't  been 
right  for  a  while  back  —  it  hums  and  rings  some. 
When  I  went  in  the  room  I  thought  it  was  my  head 
the  matter.  I  thought  I  didn't  see  right.  But  I 
did  —  I  did,  Hannah  said  I  did.  My  head  felt 
some  better  this  mornin',  an'  that  was  there,  just 
the  same.  I  thought  I'd  be  down  flat  on  my  back 
when  I  got  m'  feet  wet,  but  I'd  be  all  right  if  m' 
head  wa'n't  so  bad.  I  must  tell  Hannah  what  I 
done.  Why  don't  Hannah  come?  " 

Hannah  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  somewhat  late 
at  her  wedding.  We  were  all  in  some  suspense 
when  we  saw  her  at  last,  hurrying  up  the  street  with 
Henry,  who  had  gallantly  called  to  escort  her;  and 
Calliope  and  I  went  to  the  door  to  meet  her. 

But  when  Hannah  entered  in  Calliope's  tan  ulster 
buttoned  closely  about  her  throat,  she  was  strangely 
quiet  and  somewhat  pale  and  her  eyes,  I  was  certain, 
were  red  with  weeping. 

"  Is  Gramma  here?  "  she  asked  at  once,  and,  at 
our  answer,  merely  turned  to  hurry  upstairs  where 
Calliope  and  I  were  to  adjust  the  secret  wedding- 
gown  and  fasten  a  pink  rose  in  her  hair.  And,  as 
we  went,  Henry  added  still  further  to  our  anxiety 


ROSE  PINK  177 

by  calling  from  the  gay  little  crowd  about  him  a 
distinctly  soothing: 

"  Now,  then.     Now,  then,  Hannah !  " 

Up  in  Calliope's  tiny  chamber  Hannah  turned 
and  faced  us,  still  with  that  manner  of  suppressed 
and  escaping  excitement.  And  when  we  would  have 
helped  with  the  ulster  she  caught  at  its  collar  and 
held  it  about  her  throat  as  if,  after  all,  she  were 
half  minded  to  depart  from  the  place  and  let  her 
good-looking  giant  be  married  alone. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Marsh,  ma'am,"  she  said,  trembling, 
"  oh,  Miss  Marsh.  I  can't  dare  tell  you  what  I 
done." 

With  that  she  broke  down  and  cried,  and  Calliope 
promptly  took  her  in  her  arms,  as  I  think  that  she 
would  have  liked  to  take  the  whole  grieving  world. 
And  now,  as  she  soothed  her,  she  began  gently  to 
unbutton  the  tan  ulster,  and  Hannah  let  her  take  it 
off.  But  even  the  poor  child's  tears  had  not  pre- 
pared us  for  what  was  revealed. 

Hannah  had  come  to  her  wedding  wearing,  not 
the  rose-pink  silk,  but  the  last  year's  mull  "  with 
the  sprig  in." 

"Well,  sir!"  cried  Calliope  blankly.  "Well, 
Hannah  Hager  — " 

The  little  maid  sat  on  the  foot  of  the  bed,  sobbing. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Marsh,  ma'am,"  she  said,  "  you  know 
—  don't  you  know,  ma'am?  —  how  I  was  so  glad 


1 78        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

about  the  dress  you  give  me't  I  was  as  weak  as  a  cat 
all  over  me.  All  las'  night  in  the  evenin'  I  was  like 
a  trance  an'  couldn't  get  my  supper  down,  an'  all. 
An'  Gramma,  she  was  over  to  Mis'  Sykes's  to  sup- 
per an'  hadn't  seen  it.  An'  Gramma  an'  I  sleep  to- 
gether, an'  I  went  an'  spread  the  dress  on  the  bed, 
an'  I  set  side  of  it  till  Henry  come.  An'  I  1-left  it 
there  to  hev  him  go  in  an'  1-look  at  it.  An'  we  was 
in  the  kitchen  a  minute  or  two  first.  An'  nex'  we 
knew,  Gramma,  she  stood  in  the  inside  door.  An'  I 
thought  she  was  out  of  her  head  she  was  so  wild-like 
an'  laughin'  an'  cryin'.  An'  she  set  down  on  a  chair, 
an'  s'  she :  '  He's  done  it.  He's  done  it.  He's 
kep'  his  word.  Look  —  look  on  my  bed,'  s'  she, 
1  an'  see  if  I  ain't  seen  it  right.  Abe  Hawley,'  s' 
she,  '  he's  sent  me  my  pink  silk  dress  he  wanted  to, 
out  o'  the  grave !  ' 

Hannah's  thin,  rough  little  hands  were  clinched 
on  her  knee  and  her  eyes  searched  Calliope's  face. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Marsh,  ma'am,"  she  said,  "  she  was 
like  one  possessed,  beggin'  me  to  look  at  it  an'  tell 
her  if  it  wasn't  so.  She  thought  mebbe  it  might  be 
her  head.  So  I  went  an'  told  her  the  dress  was 
hers,"  the  little  maid  sobbed.  "  I  was  scairt  she'd 
make  herself  sick  takin'  on  so.  An'  afterwards  I 
couldn't  a-bear  to  tell  her  any  different.  Ma'am, 
if  you  could  'a'  seen  her !  She  took  her  rocker  an' 
set  by  the  bed  all  hours,  kind  o'  gentlin'  the  silk 
with  her  hands.  An'  she  wouldn't  go  to  bed  an' 


ROSE  PINK  179 

disturb  it  off,  an'  I  slep'  on  the  dinin'-room  lounge 
with  the  shawl  over  me.  An'  this  m-mornin'  she 
went  on  just  the  same.  An'  after  dinner  Lyddy  sent 
a  man  from  town  with  a  rug  for  me,  an'  I  set  on  the 
back  stoop  so's  not  to  see  him,  I  was  cryin'  so.  An' 
when  I  come  in  Gramma  hed  shut  the  bedroom  door 
an'  gone.  I  couldn't  trust  me  even  to  1-look  in  the 
bedroom  for  fear  I'd  put  it  on.  An'  I  couldn't 
take  it  away  from  her  —  I  couldn't.  Not  with  all 
she's  done  for  me,  an'  the  five  dollars  an'  all.  Oh, 
Miss  Marsh,  ma'am — "  Hannah  ended  helplessly. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  never  known  Calliope 
until  that  moment. 

"  Gracious,"  she  said  to  Hannah  calmly,  "  crying 
that  way  for  a  little  pink  silk  dress,  and  Henry  wait- 
ing for  you  downstairs!  Wipe  up  your  eyes  this 
instant  minute,  Hannah,  and  get  to  '  I  will ' !  " 

I  think  that  this  attitude  of  Calliope's  must  have 
tranquillized  the  wildest.  In  spite  of  the  reality 
of  the  tragedy,  it  was  no  time  at  all  until,  having  put 
the  pink  rose  in  Hannah's  hair,  anyway,  Calliope 
and  I  led  the  little  bride  downstairs.  For  was  there 
not  a  reality  of  happiness  down  there? 

"  After  all,  Henry  was  marrying  you  and  not  the 
dress,  you  know,"  Calliope  reminded  her  on  the 
landing. 

"  That's  what  he  keeps  a-sayin',"  consented  Han- 
nah with  a  wan  little  smile,  "  but  oh,  ma'am  — "  she 
added,  for  Hannah  was  all  feminine. 


i8o        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

And  when  the  "  I  will "  had  been  said,  I  loved 
the  little  creature  for  taking  Grandma  Hawley  in 
her  arms. 

u  Did  they  tell  you  what  I  done?  "  the  old  woman 
questioned  anxiously  when  Hannah  kissed  her.  "  I 
was  savin'  it  to  tell  you,  an'  it  went  out  o'  my  head. 
An'  I  dunno  —  did  you  know  what  I  done?"  she 
persisted. 

But  the  others  crowded  forward  with  congratula- 
tion and,  as  was  their  fashion,  with  teasing;  and 
presently  I  think  that  even  the  rosy  gown  was  for- 
gotten in  Hannah's  delight  over  her  unexpected  gifts. 
The  graniteware,  the  sweeper,  the  rug  with  the  run- 
ning dog —  after  all,  was  ever  any  one  so  blessed? 

And  as  I  watched  them  —  Hannah  and  her  great, 
good-looking  adoring  giant  —  I  who,  like  Calliope, 
love  a  surprise,  caught  a  certain  plan  by  its  shining 
wings  and  held  it  close.  They  say  that  when  one 
does  this  such  wings  bear  one  away  —  and  so  it 
proved. 

I  found  my  chance  and  whispered  my  plan  to  Han- 
nah, half  for  the  pastime  of  seeing  the  quickening 
color  in  her  cheek  and  the  light  in  her  eyes.  Then 
I  told  the  giant,  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  noting  how 
some  mischievous  god  smote  him  with  a  plague  of 
blushes.  And  they  both  consented  —  and  that  is  the 
way  when  one  clings  to  the  wings  of  a  plan. 

So  it  came  about  that  in  the  happy  bustle  of  the 
parting,  as  Hannah  in  her  "  regular  brown  Sunday 


ROSE  PINK  181 

suit "  went  away  on  Henry's  arm,  they  two  and  I 
exchanged  glances  of  pleasant  significance.  Then, 
when  every  one  had  gone,  I  turned  to  Calliope  with 
authority. 

"  Put  on,"  I  bade  her,  "  your  black  grosgrain  silk 
with  the  white  turnovers  —  and  mind  you  don't  slit 
it  up  the  back  seam!  " 

"  I'm  a-goin'  to  do  my  dishes  up,"  said  Calliope. 
"  Can't  you  set  a  spell  and  talk  it  over?  " 

"  Hurry,"  I  commanded,  "  or  we  shall  miss  the 
six-ten  express !  " 

'  What  do  you  mean?  "  she  asked  in  alarm. 

"  Leave  everything,"  said  I.  "  There's  a  box 
waiting  for  us  at  the  opera  to-night.  And  supper 
afterward." 

'  You  ain't  — "  she  said  tremulously. 

"  I  am,"  I  assured  her  firmly,  "  and  so  are  you. 
And  Hannah  and  Henry  are  going  with  us. 
Hurry!" 

IV 

"  He  promised  to  buy  me  a  bunch  of  blue  ribbons  " 

is,  in  effect,  the  spirit  of  the  "  Ah,  je  ris  de  me 
voir  si  belle  "  of  "  Marguerite  "  when  she  opens  the 
casket  of  jewels.  As  we  sat,  the  four  of  us,  in  the 
dimness  of  the  opera  box  —  Calliope  in  her  black 
silk  with  the  white  turnovers,  Hannah  in  her  "  reg- 
ular brown  Sunday  suit,"  and  Henry  and  I,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  Marguerite's  song  was  really  concerning 


182         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

the  delight  of  rose-pink  silk.  And  I  found  myself 
grieving  anew  for  the  innocent  hopes  that  had  been 
dissolved,  immaterial  as  Abe  Hawley's  message  from 
the  grave. 

Then  the  curtain  fell  on  the  third  act  and  the 
soft  thunder  of  applause  spent  itself  and  the  lights 
leaped  up.  And  immediately  I  was  aware  of  a 
conspicuously  high-pitched  voice  at  the  door  of  the 
box,  a  voice  which  carried  with  it  some  consciousness 
of  elaborate  self-possession. 

"Really!"  said  the  voice.  "  Of  all  people! 
My  dear  Hannah  —  and  Calliope  Marsh!  You 
butterflies  — " 

I  looked  up,  and  at  first  all  that  I  saw  was  a  gown 
which  "  laid  smooth  down  —  and  then  all  to  once 
it'd  slimpse  into  folds,  soft  as  soft  —  and  didn't 
pucker  nor  skew  nor  hang  wrong  " ;  a  gown  that  was 
"  dressmaker  made  " ;  a  gown,  in  short,  such  as 
Lydia  Eider  u  always  hed  on."  And  there  beside 
us  stood  Lydia  Eider  herself,  wearing  some  ex- 
quisite, priceless  thing  of  pink  chiffon  and  old  lace, 
with  a  floating,  glittering  scarf  on  her  arms. 

I  remember  that  she  seemed  some  splendid,  tropic 
bird  alight  among  our  nun-like  raiment.  A  man  or 
two,  idling  attendance,  were  rapidly  and  perfunc- 
torily presented  to  us  —  one,  who  was  Lydia's 
adopted  brother,  showing  an  amused  cordiality  to 
Henry.  And  I  saw  how  the  glasses  were  instantly 
turned  from  pit  and  boxes  toward  her  —  this  girl 


ROSE  PINK  183 

who,  with  Calliope  and  Hannah,  had  been  cast  in 
one  mold  of  prettiness  and  proportion  and  who  alone 
of  the  three,  as  I  thought,  had  come  into  her  own. 

And  Lydia  said: 

"  Will  you  tell  me  how  on  earth  Grandma  Haw- 
ley  came  to  send  me  a  pink  silk  dress  to-day?  You 
didn't  know !  But  she  did  —  on  my  honor.  It 
came  this  afternoon  by  the  man  I  sent  out  to  you, 
Hannah.  And  so  decently  made  —  how  can  it  have 
happened?  Made  for  me  too  —  positively  I  can 
wear  it  —  though  nearly  everything  I  have  is  pink. 
But  how  did  Grandma  come  to  do  it?  And  where 
did  she  get  it?  And  why  — " 

She  talked  on  for  a  little,  elaborating,  wondering. 
But  I  fancy  that  she  must  have  thought  us  uncom- 
monly stupid,  for  none  of  us  had  the  faintest  sug- 
gestion to  offer.  We  listened,  and  murmured  a  bit 
about  the  health  of  Grandma  Hawley,  and  Henry 
said  some  hesitating  thanks,  in  which  Hannah  barely 
joined,  for  the  wedding  gift  of  the  rug,  but  none  of 
us  gave  evidence.  And  at  last,  with  some  gracious 
word,  Lydia  Eider  left  the  box,  trailing  her  pink 
chiffon  skirts  and  saying  the  slight  good-by  which 
utterly  forgets  one. 

But  when  she  had  gone,  Calliope  laughed,  softly 
and  ambiguously  and  wholly  contagiously,  so  that 
Hannah,  whose  face  had  begun  to  pucker  like  a 
child's,  unwillingly  joined  her.  And  then,  partly 
because  of  Henry's  reassuring,  "  Now  then,  now 


184         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

then,  Hannah,"  and  partly  at  the  touch  of  his  big 
hand  and  in  the  particular,  delicious  embarrassment 
which  comes  but  once,  Hannah  tremulously  spoke 
her  conclusion: 

"  I  don't  care,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  care !  I'm 
glad —  for  Gramma." 

Calliope  sat  smiling,  looking,  in  her  delicate  color 
and  frailty  and  the  black  and  white  of  her  dress, 
like  some  one  on  a  fan,  exquisitely  and  appropriately 
painted. 

"  I  was  thinking,"  she  said  brightly  to  Hannah, 
"  going  without  a  thing  is  some  like  a  jumping 
tooth.  It  hurts  you  before-hand,  but  when  it's  gone 
for  good  all  the  hurt  sort  of  eases  down  and  peters 
out  and  can't  do  you  any  more  harm." 

But  I  think  they  both  knew  that  this  was  not  all. 
For  some  way,  outside  the  errantry  of  prettiness  and 
proportion,  Calliope  and  Hannah  too  had  come  into 
their  own. 

I  looked  at  Calliope,  her  face  faintly  flushed  by 
the  unwonted  hour;  at  Hannah,  rosy  little  bride; 
and  at  her  adoring  giant  over  whom  some  god  had 
cast  the  usual  spell  of  wedding  blushes. 

Verily,  I  thought,  would  not  one  say  there  is 
rose  pink  enough  in  the  world  for  us  all? 

As  the  curtain  rose  again  Calliope  leaned  toward 
me.  "  I  don't  believe  any  dress,"  she  said,  "  pink 
silk  or  any  other  kind,  ever  dressed  up  so  many 
folks's  souls !  " 


PEACE  i 

WHEN  they  went  to  South  America  for  six 
months,  the  Henslows,  that  live  across  the  street 
from  me,  wanted  to  rent  their  cottage.  And  of 
course,  being  a  neighbor,  I  wanted  them  to  get  the 
fifteen  dollars  a  month.  But  —  being  the  cottage 
was  my  neighbor  —  I  couldn't  help,  deep  down  in 
my  inner  head,  feeling  kind  of  selfish  pleased  that 
it  stood  vacant  a  while.  It's  a  chore  to  have  a  new 
neighbor  in  the  summer.  They  always  want  to  bor- 
row your  rubber  fruit-rings,  and  they  forget  to  re- 
turn some ;  and  they  come  in  and  sit  in  the  mornings 
when  you  want  to  get  your  work  out  of  the  way  be- 
fore the  hot  part  of  a  hot  day  crashes  down  on  you. 
I  can  neighbor  agreeable  when  the  snow  flies,  but 
summers  I  want  my  porch  and  my  rocker  and  my 
wrapper  and  my  palm-leaf  fan,  and  nobody  to  call 
on.  And-- I  don't  want  to  sound  less  neighborly 
than  I  mean  to  sound  —  I  don't  want  any  real 
danger  of  being  what  you  might  say  called-on  — 
not  till  the  cool  of  the  day. 

Then,  on  a  glorious  summer  morning,  right  out 
of  a  clear  blue  sky,  what  did  I  see  but  two  trunks 

l  Copyright,   1917,   Woman's  Home  Companion. 

185 


i86        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

plopped  down  on  the  Henslows'  porch!  I  knew 
they  were  never  back  so  soon.  I  knew  the  two 
trunks  meant  renters,  and  nothing  but  renters. 

"  I'll  bet  ten  hundred  thousand  dollars  one  of 
them  plays  the  flute  and  practices  evenings,"  I  says. 

I  didn't  catch  sight  of  them  till  the  next  morning, 
and  then  I  saw  him  head  for  the  early  train  into  the 
city,  and  her  stand  at  the  gate  and  watch  him.  And, 
my  land,  she  was  in  a  white  dress  and  she  didn't 
look  twenty  years  old. 

So  I  went  right  straight  over. 

"  My  dear,"  I  says,  "  I  dunno  what  your  name  is, 
but  I'm  your  neighbor,  and  I  dunno  what  more  we 
need  than  that." 

She  put  out  her  hand  —  just  exactly  as  if  she  was 
glad.  She  had  a  wonderful  sweet,  loving  smile  — 
and  she  smiled  with  that. 

So  I  says:  "I  thought  moving  in  here  with 
trunks,  so,  you  might  want  something.  And  if  I 
can  let  you  have  anything  —  jars  or  jelly-glasses  or 
rubber  rings  or  whatever,  why,  just  you  — " 

"  Thank  you,  Miss  Marsh,"  she  says.  "  I  know 
you're  Miss  Marsh  —  Mrs.  Henslow  told  me  about 
you." 

"  The  same,"  says  I,  neat. 

"I'm  Mrs.  Harry  Beecher,"  she  says.  "I  — 
we  were  just  married  last  week,"  she  says,  neat  as  a 
biography. 

"  So  you  was !  "  I  says.     "  Well,  now,  you  just 


PEACE  187 

let  me  be  to  you  what  your  folks  would  want  me  to 
be,  won't  you?  "  says  I.  "  Feel,"  I  says,  "  just  like 
you  could  run  in  over  to  my  house  any  time,  morn- 
ing, noon  or  night.  Call  on  me  for  anything. 
Come  on  over  and  sit  with  me  if  you  feel  lonesome 
—  or  if  you  don't.  My  side  porch  is  real  nice  and 
cool  and  shady  all  the  afternoon  — " 

And  so  on.  And  wasn't  that  nice  to  happen  to 
me,  right  in  the  middle  of  the  dead  of  summer,  with 
nothing  going  on? 

If  you  have  lived  in  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  a  bride  and  groom,  you  know  what  I  am  going 
to  tell  about. 

But  if  you  haven't,  try  to  rent  your  next  house  — 
if  you  rent  —  or  try  to  buy  your  next  home  —  if 
you  buy  —  somewhere  in  the  more-or-less  neighbor- 
hood of  a  bride  and  groom.  Because  it's  an  educa- 
tion. It's  an  education  in  living.  No  —  I  don't 
believe  I  mean  that  the  way  you  think  I  mean  it  at 
all.  I  mean  it  another  way. 

To  be  sure,  there  were  the  mornings,  when  I  saw 
them  come  out  from  breakfast  and  steal  a  minute  or 
two  hanging  round  the  veranda  before  he  had  to 
start  off.  That  was  as  nice  as  a  picture,  and  nicer. 
I  got  so  I  timed  my  breakfast  so's  I  could  be  water- 
ing my  flower-beds  when  this  happened,  and  not  miss 
it.  He  usually  pulled  the  vines  over  better,  or 
weeded  a  little  near  the  step,  or  tinkered  with  the 
hinge  of  the  screen,  or  fussed  with  the  bricks  where 


i88        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

the  roots  had  pushed  them  up.  And  she  sat  on  the 
steps  and  talked  with  him,  and  laughed  now  and 
then  with  her  little  pretty  laugh.  (Not  many 
women  can  laugh  as  pretty  as  she  did  —  and  we  all 
ought  to  be  able  to  do  it.  Sometimes  I  wish  some- 
body would  start  a  school  to  teach  pretty  laughing, 
and  somebody  else  would  make  us  all  go  to  it.) 
And  I  knew  how  they  were  pretending  that  this  was 
really  their  own  home,  and  playing  proprietor  and 
householder,  just  like  everybody  else.  And  of 
course  that  was  pleasurable  to  me  to  see  —  but  that 
wasn't  what  I  meant. 

Nor  I  didn't  mean  times  when  she'd  be  out  in 
the  garden  during  the  day,  and  the  telephone  bell 
would  ring,  and  she  would  throw  things  and  head 
for  the  house,  running,  because  she  thought  it  might 
be  him  calling  her  up  from  the  city.  Most  usually 
it  was.  I  always  knew  it  had  been  him  when  she 
came  back  singing. 

And  then  there  were  the  late  afternoons,  say,  al- 
most an  hour  before  the  first  train  that  he  could 
possibly  come  on  and  that  now  and  then  he  caught. 
Always  before  it  was  time  for  that  she  would  open 
her  front  door  that  she'd  had  closed  all  day  to  keep 
her  house  cool,  and  she'd  bring  her  book  or  her  sew- 
ing out  on  the  porch,  and  never  pay  a  bit  of  attention 
to  either,  because  she  sat  looking  up  the  street. 
There  was  only  a  little  bit  of  shade  on  her  porch 
that  time  in  the  afternoon,  and  I  used  to  want  to  ask 


PEACE  189 

her  to  come  over  on  my  cool,  shady  side  porch,  but 
I  had  the  sense  not  to.  I  sort  of  understood  how 
she  liked  to  sit  out  there  where  she  was,  on  their 
own  porch,  waiting  for  him.  Then  he'd  come,  and 
she'd  sit  out  in  the  garden  and  read  to  him  while 
he  dug  in  the  beds,  or  she'd  sew  on  the  porch  while 
he  cut  the  grass  —  well,  now,  it  don't  sound  like 
much  as  I  tell  it,  does  it?  —  and  yet  it  used  to  look 
wonderful  sweet  to  me,  looking  across  the  street. 

But  as  I  said,  it  wasn't  any  of  these  times,  nor 
yet  the  long  summer  evenings  when  I  could  just  see 
the  glimmer  of  her  white  dress  on  the  porch  or  in 
the  garden,  or  their  shadows  on  the  curtain,  rainy 
evenings;  no,  it  wasn't  these  times  that  made  me 
wish  for  everybody  in  the  world  that  they  lived  next 
door  to  a  bride  and  groom.  But  the  thing  I  mean 
came  to  me  all  of  a  sudden,  when  they  hadn't  been 
my  neighbors  for  a  week.  And  it  came  to  me  like 
this: 

One  night  I'd  had  them  over  for  supper.  It  had 
been  a  hot  day,  and  ordinarily  I'm  opposed  to  com- 
pany on  a  hot  day;  but  some  way  having  them  was 
different.  And  then  I  didn't  imagine  she  was  so 
very  used  to  cooking,  and  I  got  to  thinking  maybe 
a  meal  away  from  home  would  be  a  rest. 

And  after  supper  we'd  been  walking  around  my 
yard,  looking  at  my  late  cosmos  and  wondering 
whether  it  would  get  around  to  bloom  before  the 
frost.  And  they  had  been  telling  me  how  they  meant 


190        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

to  plant  their  garden  when  they  got  one  of  their  own. 
I  liked  to  keep  them  talking  about  it,  because  his  face 
lit  up  so  young  and  boyish,  and  hers  got  all  soft  and 
bright;  and  they  looked  at  each  other  like  they  could 
see  that  garden  planted  and  up  and  growing  and 
pretty  near  paid  for.  So  I  kept  egging  them  on,  ask- 
ing this  and  that,  just  to  hear  them  plan. 

"  One  whole  side  of  the  wall,"  said  he,  "  we'll 
have  lilacs  and  forsythia." 

She  looked  at  him.  "  I  thought  we  said  holly- 
hocks there,"  she  said. 

"  Well,  don't  you  remember,"  he  said,  "  we 
changed  that  when  you  said  you'd  planned,  ever 
since  you  were  a  little  girl  to  have  lilacs  and  for- 
sythia on  the  edge  of  your  garden?  " 

"  Well  —  so  I  did,"  she  remembered.  "  But  I 
thought  you  said  you  liked  hollyhocks  best?  " 

"  Maybe  I  did,"  says  he.  "  I  forget.  I  don't 
know  but  I  did  for  a  while.  But  I  think  of  it  this 
way  now." 

She  laughed.  "  Why,"  she  said,  "  I  was  getting 
to  prefer  hollyhocks." 

I  noticed  that  particular.  Then  we  came  round 
the  corner  of  the  house.  And  the  street  looked  so 
peaceful  and  lovely  that  I  knew  just  how  he  felt 
when  he  said : 

"  Let's  us  three  go  and  take  a  drive  in  the  coun- 
try. Can't  we?  We  could  get  a  carriage  some- 
where, couldn't  we?  " 


PEACE  191 

And  she  says  like  a  little  girl,  "  Oh,  yes,  let's. 
But  don't  you  s'pose  we  could  rent  a  car  here  from 
somebody?  " 

I  liked  to  look  at  his  look  when  he  looked  at  her. 
He  done  it  now. 

"A  car?  "  he  said.  "  But  you're  nervous  when 
I  drive.  Wouldn't  you  rather  have  a  horse?" 

"  Well,  but  you'd  rather  have  a  car,"  she  said. 
"  And  I'd  like  to  know  you  were  liking  that 
best !  And,  truly,  I  don't  think  I'd  care  much  — 


now." 


Then  I  took  a  hand.  "  You  look  here,"  I  says. 
"  I'd  really  ought  to  step  down  to  Mis'  Merriman's 
to  a  committee  meeting.  I've  been  trying  to  make 
myself  believe  I  didn't  need  to  go,  but  I  know  I 
ought  to.  And  you  two  take  your  drive." 

They  fussed  a  little,  but  that  was  the  way  we  ar- 
ranged it.  I  went  off  to  my  meeting  before  I  saw 
which  they  did  get  to  go  in.  But  that  didn't  make 
any  difference.  All  the  way  to  the  meeting  I  kept 
thinking  about  lilacs  and  hollyhocks  and  horses  and 
cars.  And  I  saw  what  had  happened  to  those  two: 
they  loved  each  other  so  much  that  they'd  kind  of 
lost  track  of  the  little  things  that  they  thought  had 
mattered  so  much,  and  neither  could  very  well  re- 
member which  they  had  really  had  a  leaning  towards 
of  all  the  things. 

"  It's  a  kind  of  each-otherness!  "  I  says  to  myself. 
"  It's  a  new  thing.  That  ain't  giving-upness.  Giv- 


192         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

ing-upness  is  when  you  still  want  what  you  give  up. 
This  is  something  else.  It's  each-otherness.  And 
you  can't  get  it  till  you  care" 

But  then  I  thought  of  something  else.  It  wasn't 
only  them  —  it  was  me !  It  was  like  I  had  caught  \ 
something  from  them.  For  of  course  I'd  rather 
have  gone  driving  with  those  two  than  to  have  gone 
to  any  committee  meeting,  necessary  or  not.  But 
I  knew  now  that  I'd  been  feeling  inside  me  that  of 
course  they  didn't  want  an  old  thing  like  me  along, 
and  that  of  course  they'd  rather  have  their  drive 
alone,  horse  or  automobile.  And  so  I'd  kind  of 
backed  out  according.  Being  with  them  had  made 
me  feel  a  sort  of  each-otherness  too.  It  was  won- 
derful. I  thought  about  it  a  good  deal. 

And  when  I  came  home  and  see  that  they'd  got 
back  first,  and  were  sitting  on  the  porch  with  no 
lights  in  the  house  yet,  except  the  one  burning  dim 
in  the  hall,  I  sat  upstairs  by  my  window  quite  a 
while.  And  I  says  to  myself: 

"  If  only  there  was  a  bride  and  groom  in  every 
single  house  all  up  and  down  the  streets  of  the 
village  _" 

And  I  could  almost  think  how  it  would  be  with 
everybody  being  decent  to  each  other  and  to  the 
rest,  just  sheer  because  they  were  all  happy. 

Picture  how  I  felt,  then,  when  not  six  weeks  later, 
on  a  morning  all  yellow  and  blue  and  green,  and 
tied  onto  itself  with  flowers,  little  Mrs.  Bride  came 


PEACE  193 

standing  at  my  side  door,  knocking  on  the  screen, 
and  her  face  all  tear-stained. 

"  Gracious,  now,"  I  says,  "  did  breakfast  burn?  " 

She  came  in.  She  always  wore  white  dresses  and 
little  doll  caps  in  the  morning,  and  she  sit  down  at 
the  end  of  my  dining-room  table,  looking  like  a  rose- 
bud in  trouble. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Marsh,"  she  says,  "  it  isn't  any  laugh- 
ing matter.  Something's  happened  between  us. 
We've  spoke  cross  to  each  other." 

"  Well,  well,"  I  says,  "  what  was  that  for?  " 

I  s'posed  maybe  he'd  criticized  the  popovers,  or 
something  equally  universal  had  occurred. 

"  That  was  it,"  she  says.  "  We've  spoke  cross 
to  each  other,  Miss  Marsh." 

And  then  it  came  to  me  that  it  didn't  seem  to  be 
bothering  her  at  all  what  it  was  about.  The  only 
thing  that  stuck  out  for  her  was  that  they'd  spoke 
cross  to  each  other. 

"  So !  "  I  says.  "  And  you've  got  to  wait  all  day 
long  before  you  can  patch  it  up.  Why  don't  you 
call  him  up?  "  I  ask  her.  "  It's  only  twenty  cents 
for  the  three  minutes  —  and  you  can  get  it  all  in 
that." 

She  shook  her  head.  "  That's  the  worst  of  it," 
she  says.  "  I  can't  do  it.  Neither  can  he.  I'm  not 
that  sort  —  to  be  able  to  give  in  after  I've  been 
mad  and  spoke  harsh.  I'm  —  I'm  afraid  neither 
of  us  will,  even  when  he  gets  home." 


194        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Then  I  sat  up  straight.  This,  I  see,  was  serious 
—  most  as  serious  as  she  thought. 

"  What's  the  reason?  "  says  I. 

"  I  dunno,"  she  says.  "  We're  like  that  —  both 
of  us.  We're  awful  proud  —  no  matter  how  much 
we  want  to  give  in,  we  can't." 

I  sat  looking  at  her. 

"  Call  him  up,"  I  says. 

She  shook  her  head  again  and  made  her  pretty 
mouth  all  tight. 

"  I  couldn't,"  she  says.     "  I  couldn't." 

She  seemed  to  like  to  sit  and  talk  it  over,  kind  of 
luxurious.  She  told  me  how  it  began  —  some  two- 
penny thing  about  screens  in  the  parlor  window. 
She  told  me  how  one  thing  led  to  another.  I  let 
her  talk  and  I  sat  there  thinking.  Pretty  soon  she 
went  home  and  she  never  sung  once  all  day.  It 
didn't  seem  as  if  anybody's  screens  were  worth  that. 

I'm  not  one  that's  ashamed  of  looking  at  anything 
I'm  interested  in.  When  it  came  time  for  the  folks 
from  the  afternoon  local,  I  sat  down  in  my  parlor 
behind  the  Nottinghams.  I  saw  she  never  came  out 
to  the  gate.  And  when  he  came  home  I  could  see 
her  white  dress  out  in  the  back  garden  where  she 
was  pretending  to  work. 

He  sat  down  on  the  front  porch  and  smoked,  and 
seemed  to  read  the  paper.  She  came  in  the  house 
after  a  while,  and  finally  she  appeared  in  the  front 
door  for  three-fourths  of  a  second. 


PEACE  195 

"  Your  supper's  ready  for  you/'  I  heard  her  say. 
And  then  I  knew,  certain  sure,  how  they  were  both 
sitting  there  at  their  table  not  speaking  a  word. 

I  ate  my  own  supper,  and  I  felt  like  a  funeral  was 
going  on.  It  kills  something  in  me  to  have  young 
folks,  or  any  folks,  act  like  that.  And  when  I  went 
back  in  the  parlor  I  saw  him  on  the  front  porch 
again,  smoking,  and  her  on  the  side  porch  playing 
with  the  kitten. 

"  It's  the  first  death,"  I  says.  "  It's  their  first 
kind  of  death.  And  I  can't  stand  it  a  minute 
longer." 

So  when  I  saw  him  start  out  pretty  soon  to  go 
downtown  alone  —  I  went  to  my  front  gate  and  I 
called  to  him  to  come  over.  He  came  —  a  fine, 
close-knit  chap  he  was,  with  the  young  not  rubbed 
out  of  his  face  yet,  and  his  eyes  window-clear. 

"  The  catch  on  my  closet-door  don't  act  right/'  I 
says.  u  I  wonder  if  you'll  fix  it  for  me?  " 

He  went  up  and  done  it,  and  I  ran  for  the  tools 
for  him  and  tried  to  get  my  courage  up.  When  he 
got  through  and  came  down  I  was  sitting  on  my  hall- 
tree. 

"  Mr.  Groom,"  I  says  —  that  was  my  name  for 
him  — "  I  hope  you  won't  think  I'm  interfering  too 
much,  but  I  want  to  speak  to  you  serious  about  your 
wife." 

"  Yes,"  he  says,  short. 

I  went  on,  never  noticing:     "  I  dunno  whether 


i96         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

you've  took  it  in,  but  there  seems  to  be  something 
wrong  with  her." 

"  Wrong  with  her?  "  he  says. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  I  says.  u  And  I  dunno  but  awfully 
wrong.  I've  been  noticing  lately."  (I  didn't  say 
how  lately.) 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  says  he,  and  sat  down  on 
the  bottom  step. 

"  Don't  you  see,"  I  says,  "  that  she  don't  look 
well?  She  don't  act  no  more  like  herself  than  I  do. 
She  hasn't,"  says  I,  truthful,  "  half  the  spirit  to  her 
to-day  that  she  had  when  you  first  came  here  to  the 
village." 

"Why  — no,"  he  says,  "I  hadn't  noticed—" 

"  You  wouldn't,"  says  I.  "  You  wouldn't  be 
likely  to.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  you  ought  to  be 
warned  —  and  be  on  your  guard." 

"  Warned!  "  he  says,  and  I  saw  him  get  pale  — 
I  tell  you  I  saw  him  get  pale. 

u  I'm  not  easy  alarmed,"  I  told  him.  "  And 
when  I  see  anything  serious,  it  ain't  in  my  power  to 
stand  aside  and  not  say  anything." 

"  Serious,"  he  says  over.  "  Serious?  But,  Miss 
Marsh,  can  you  give  me  any  idea  — " 

"  I've  give  you  a  hint,"  says  I,  "  that  it's  some- 
thing you'd  ought  to  be  mighty  careful  about.  I 
dunno's  I  can  do  much  more;  I  dunno's  I  ought  to 
do  that.  But  if  anything  should  happen — " 


PEACE  197 

"Good  heavens!"  he  says.  "You  don't  think 
she's  that  bad  off?" 

" —  if  anything  should  happen,"  I  went  on,  calm, 
"  I  didn't  want  to  have  myself  to  blame  for  not 
having  s^oke  up  in  time.  Now,"  says  I,  brisk,  "  you 
were  just  going  downtown.  And  I've  got  a  taste 
of  jell  I  want  to  take  over  to  her.  So  I  won't  keep 
you." 

He  got  up,  looking  so  near  like  a  tree  that's  had 
its  roots  hacked  at  that  I  'most  could  have  told  him 
that  I  didn't  mean  the  kind  of  death  he  was  thinking 
of  at  all.  But  I  didn't  say  anything  more.  And  he 
thanked  me,  humble  and  grateful  and  scaced,  and 
went  off  downtown.  He  looked  over  to  the  cottage, 
though,  when  he  shut  my  gate  —  I  noticed  that. 
She  wasn't  anywhere  in  sight.  Nor  she  wasn't  when 
I  stepped  up  onto  her  porch  in  a  minute  or  two  with 
a  cup-plate  of  my  new  quince  jell  that  I  wanted  her  to 
try. 

"  Hello,"  I  says  in  the  passage.  "  Anybody 
home?" 

There  was  a  little  shuffle  and  she  came  out  of  the 
dining-room.  There  was  a  mark  all  acrost  her 
cheek,  and  I  judged  she'd  been  lying  on  the  couch 
out  there  crying. 

"  Get  a  teaspoon,"  says  I,  "  and  come  taste  my 
new  receipt." 

She  came,  lack-luster,  and  like  jell  didn't  make 


ig8        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

much  more  difference  than  anything  else.  We  sat 
down,  cozy,  in  the  hammock,  me  acting  like  I'd  for- 
got everything  in  the  world  about  what  had  gone 
before.  I  rattled  on  about  the  new  way  to  make 
my  jell  and  then  I  set  the  sample  on  the  sill  behind 
the  shutter  and  I  says : 

"  I  just  had  Mr.  Groom  come  over  to  fix  the 
latch  on  my  closet-door.  I  dunno  what  was  wrong 
with  it  —  when  I  shut  it  tight  it  went  off  like  a  gun 
in  the  middle  of  the  night.  Mr.  Groom  fixed  it  in 
just  a  minute." 

"  Oh,  he  did,"  says  she,  about  like  that. 

"  He's  awful  handy  with  tools,"  I  says.  And 
she  didn't  say  anything.  And  then  says  I: 

"  Mrs.  Bride,  we're  old  friends  by  now,  ain't 
we?" 

"  Why,  yes,"  says  she,  "  and  good  friends,  I 
hope." 

"That's  what  I  hope,"  I  says.  "And  now," 
I  went  on,  "  I  hope  you  won't  think  I'm  interfering 
too  much,  but  I  want  to  speak  to  you  serious  about 
your  husband." 

"  My  husband?  "  says  she,  short. 

I  went  on,  never  noticing.  "  I  don't  know 
whether  you've  took  it  in,  but  there  seems  to  be 
something  wrong  with  him." 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  she  says,  looking  at  me. 

"  Well,  sir,"  I  says,  "  I  ain't  sure.  I  can't  tell 
just  how  wrong  it  is.  But  something  is  ailing  him." 


PEACE  199 

"  Why,  I  haven't  noticed  anything,"  she  says,  and 
come  over  to  a  chair  nearer  to  me. 

"  You  don't  mean,"  I  says,  "  that  you  don't  notice 
the  change  there's  been  in  him?  " — I  didn't  say  in 
how  long — "  the  lines  in  his  face  and  how  different 
he  acts?" 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  says.     "  Why,  surely  not!  " 

u  Surely  yes,"  says  I.  "  It  strikes  me  —  it  struck 
me  over  there  to-night  —  that  something  is  the  mat- 
ter —  serious." 

"  Oh,  don't  say  that,"  she  says.     "  You  frighten 


me." 


"  I'm  sorry  for  that,"  says  I.  "  But  it's  better 
to  be  frightened  too  soon  than  too  late.  And  if 
anything  should  happen  I  wouldn't  want  to  think  — " 

"  Oh !  "  she  says,  sharp,  "  what  do  you  think  could 
happen?  " 

" —  I  wouldn't  want  to  think,"  I  went  on,  "  that 
I  had  suspicioned  and  hadn't  warned  you." 

"  But  what  can  I  do  — "  she  began. 

"  You  can  watch  out,"  I  says,  "  now  that  you 
know.  Folks  get  careless  about  their  near  and  dear 
—  that's  all.  They  don't  notice  that  anything's  the 
matter  till  it's  too  late." 

"  Oh,  dear !  "  she  says.  "  Oh,  if  anything  should 
happen  to  Harry,  why,  Miss  Marsh  — " 

"  Exactly,"  says  I. 

We  talked  on  a  little  while  till  I  heard  what  I 
was  waiting  for  —  him  coming  up  the  street.  I 


200         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

noticed  that  he  hadn't  been  gone  downtown  long 
enough  to  buy  a  match. 

"  I'm  going  over  to  Miss  Matey's  for  some  pie- 
plant," I  says.  "  Her  second  crop  is  on.  Can  I 
go  through  your  back  gate?  Maybe  I'll  come  back 
this  way." 

When  I  went  around  their  house  I  saw  that  she 
was  still  standing  on  the  porch  and  he  was  coming 
in  the  gate.  And  I  never  looked  back  at  all  —  bad 
as  I  wanted  to. 

It  was  deep  dusk  when  I  came  back.  The  air 
was  as  gentle  as  somebody  that  likes  you  when 
they're  liking  you  most. 

When  I  came  by  the  end  of  the  porch  I  heard 
voices,  so  I  knew  that  they  were  talking.  And  then 
I  caught  just  one  sentence.  You'd  think  I  could 
have  been  contented  to  slip  through  the  front  yard 
and  leave  them  to  work  it  out.  But  I  wasn't.  In 
fact  I'd  only  just  got  the  stage  set  ready  for  what 
I  meant  to  do. 

I  walked  up  the  steps  and  laid  my  pie-plant  on 
the  stoop. 

"  I'm  coming  in,"  I  says. 

They  got  up  and  said  the  different  things  usual. 
And  I  went  and  sat  down. 

"  You'll  think  in  a  minute,"  says  I,  "  that  I  owe 
you  both  an  apology.  But  I  don't." 

"What  for,  dear?"  Mrs.  Bride  says,  and  took 
my  hand. 


PEACE  201 

I'm  an  old  woman  and  I  felt  like  their  mother 
and  their  grandmother.  But  I  felt  a  little  fright- 
ened too. 

"  Is  either  of  you  sick?  "  I  says. 

Both  of  them  says:  "  No,  /  ain't."  And  both 
of  them  looked  furtive  and  quick  at  the  other. 

"  Well,"  I  says,  "  mebbe  you  don't  know  it.  But 
to-day  both  of  you  has  had  the  symptoms  of  coming 
down  with  something.  Something  serious." 

They  looked  at  me,  puzzled. 

"  I  noticed  it  in  Mrs.  Bride  this  morning,"  I  says, 
u  when  she  came  over  to  my  house.  She  looked 
white,  and  like  all  the  life  had  gone  out  of  her. 
And  she  didn't  sing  once  all  day,  nor  do  any  work. 
Then  I  noticed  it  in  you  to-night,"  I  says  to  him, 
u  when  you  walked  looking  down,  and  came  acrost 
the  street  lack-luster,  and  like  nothing  mattered  so 
much  as  it  might  have  if  it  had  mattered  more.  And 
so  I  done  the  natural  thing.  I  told  each  of  you 
about  something  being  the  matter  with  the  other 
one.  Something  serious." 

I  stood  up  in  front  of  them,  and  I  dunno  but  I 
felt  like  a  fairy  godmother  that  had  something  to 
give  them  —  something  priceless. 

"  When  two  folks,"  I  says,  "  speak  cross  to  each 
other  and  can't  give  in,  it's  just  as  sure  a  disease  as 
—  as  quinsy.  And  it'll  be  fatal,  same  as  a  fever  can 
be.  You  can  hate  the  sight  of  me  if  you  want  to, 
but  that's  why  I  spoke  out  like  I  done." 


202        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

I  didn't  dare  look  at  them.  I  began  just  there 
to  see  what  an  awful  thing  I  had  done,  and  how 
they  were  perfectly  bound  to  take  it.  But  I  thought 
I'd  get  in  as  much  as  I  could  before  they  ordered 
me  off  the  porch. 

"  I've  loved  seeing  you  over  here,"  I  says.  "  It's 
made  me  young  again.  I've  loved  watching  you  say 
good-by  in  the  mornings,  and  meet  again  evenings. 
I've  loved  looking  out  over  here  to  the  light  when 
you  sat  reading,  and  I  could  see  your  shadows  go 
acrost  the  curtains  sometimes,  when  I  sat  rocking 
in  my  house  by  myself.  It's  all  been  something  I've 
liked  to  know  was  happening.  It  seemed  as  if  a 
beautiful,  new  thing  was  beginning  in  the  world  — 
and  you  were  it." 

All  at  once  I  got  kind  of  mad  at  the  two  of  them. 

41  And  here  for  a  little  tinkering  matter  about 
screens  for  the  parlor,  you  go  and  spoil  all  my  fun 
by  not  speaking  to  each  other!  "  I  scolded,  sharp. 

It  was  that,  I  think,  that  turned  the  tide  and 
made  them  laugh.  They  both  did  laugh,  hearty  — 
and  they  looked  at  each  other  and  laughed  —  I  no- 
ticed that.  For  two  folks  can  not  look  at  each 
other  and  laugh  and  stay  mad  same  time.  They 
can  not  do  it. 

I  went  right  on:  "  So,"  I  says,  "  I  told  you  each 
the  truth,  that  the  other  one  was  sick.  So  you 
were,  both  of  you.  Sick  at  heart.  And  you  know 
it." 


PEACE  203 

He  put  out  h»is  hand  to  her. 

"  I  know  it,"  he  says. 

"  I  know  too,"  says  she. 

"Land!  "  says  I,  "you  done  that  awful  pretty. 
If  I  could  give  in  that  graceful  about  anything 
I'd  go  round  giving  in  whether  I'd  said  anything 
to  be  sorry  for  or  not.  I'd  do  it  for  a  parlor 
trick." 

"  Was  it  hard,  dear?  "  he  says  to  her.  And  she 
put  up  her  face  to  him  just  as  if  I  hadn't  been 
there.  I  liked  that.  And  it  made  me  feel  as  much 
at  home  as  the  clock. 

He  looked  hard  at  me. 

"  Truly,"  he  says,  "  didn't  you  mean  she 
looked  bad?" 

"  I  meant  just  what  I  said,'5  says  I.  "  She  did 
look  bad.  But  she  don't  now." 

"  And  you  made  it  all  up,"  she  says,  "  about 
something  serious  being  the  matter  with  him  — " 

"  Made  it  up!  "  says  I.  "  No!  But  what  ailed 
him  this  morning  doesn't  ail  him  now.  That's  all. 
I  s'pose  you're  both  mad  at  me,"  I  says,  mournful. 

He  took  a  deep  breath.  "  Not  when  I'm  as 
thankful  as  this,"  he  says. 

"  And  me,"  she  says.     "  And  me." 

I  looked  around  the  little  garden  of  the  Hen- 
slows'  cottage,  with  the  moon  behaving  as  if  every- 
thing was  going  as  smooth  as  glass  —  don't  you  al- 
ways notice  that  about  the  moon?  What  grand 


204        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

manners  it's  got?  It  never  lets  on  that  anything 
is  the  matter. 

He  threw  his  arm  across  her  shoulder  in  that  ges- 
ture of  comradeship  that  is  most  the  sweetest  thing 
they  do. 

They  got  up  and  came  over  to  me  quick. 

"  We  can't  thank  you  — "  she  says. 

"  Shucks,"  I  says.  "  I  been  wishing  I  had  some- 
thing to  give  you.  I  couldn't  think  of  anything  but 
vegetables.  Now  mebbe  I've  give  you  something 
after  all  —  providing  you  don't  go  and  forget  it 
the  very  next  time,"  I  says,  wanting  to  scold  them 
again. 

They  walked  to  the  gate  with  me.  The  night  was 
black  and  pale  gold,  like  a  great  soft  drowsy  bee. 

"  You  know,"  I  says,  when  I  left  them,  "  peace 
that  we  talk  so  much  about  —  that  isn't  going  to 
come  just  by  governments  getting  it.  If  people  like 
you  and  me  can't  keep  it  —  and  be  it  —  what  hope 
is  there  for  the  nations?  We  are  'em!  " 

I'd  never  thought  of  it  before.  I  went  home  say- 
ing it  over.  When  I'd  put  my  pie-plant  down  cellar 
I  went  in  my  dark  little  parlor  and  sat  down  by  the 
window  and  rocked.  I  could  see  their  light  for  a 
little  while.  Then  it  went  out.  The  cottage  lay 
in  that  hush  of  peace  of  a  hot  summer  night.  I 
could  feel  the  peacefulness  of  the  village. 

"  If  only  we  can  get  enough  of  it,"  I  says.  "  If 
only  we  can  get  enough  of  it  — " 


DREAM 

WHEN  a  house  in  the  neighborhood  has  been  va- 
cant for  two  years,  and  all  of  a  sudden  the  neigh- 
borhood sees  furniture  being  moved  into  that  house, 
excitement,  as  Silas  Sykes  says,  reigns  supreme  and 
more  than  supreme. 

And  so  it  did  in  Friendship  Village  when  the 
Oldmoxon  House  got  a  new  tenant,  unbeknownst. 
The  excitement  was  specially  strained  because  the 
reason  Oldmoxon  House  had  stood  vacant  so  long 
was  the  rent.  And  whoever  had  agreed  to  the 
Twenty  Dollars  was  going  to  be,  we  all  felt,  and  as 
Mis'  Sykes  herself  put  it,  "  a  distinct  addition  to 
Friendship  Village  society." 

It  was  she  gave  me  the  news,  being  the  Sykeses 
are  the  Oldmoxon  House's  nearest  neighbors.  I 
hurried  right  over  to  her  house  —  it  was  summer- 
warm  and  you  just  ached  for  an  excuse  to  be  out  in 
it,  anyway.  We  drew  some  rockers  onto  her  front 
porch  where  we  could  get  a  good  view.  The  Old- 
moxon double  front  doors  stood  open,  and  the  things 
were  being  set  inside. 

"  Serves  me  right  not  to  know  who  it  is,"  says 
Mis'  Sykes.  "  I  see  men  working  there  yesterday, 

205 


206        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

and  I  never  went  over  to  inquire  what  they  were 
doing." 

"  A  body  can't  do  everything  that's  expected  of 
them,"  says  I,  soothing. 

"  Won't  it  be  nice,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  dreamy,  "  to 
have  that  house  open  again,  and  folks  going  and 
coming,  and  maybe  parties  ?  "  It  was  then  the  piano 
came  out  of  the  van,  and  she  gave  her  ultimatum. 
"  Whoever  it  is,"  she  says,  pointing  eloquent,  "  will 
be  a  distinct  addition  to  Friendship  Village  society." 

There  wasn't  a  soul  in  sight  that  seemed  to  be 
doing  the  directing,  so  pretty  soon  Mis'  Sykes  says, 
uneasy: 

"  I  don't  know  —  would  it  seem  —  how  would  it 
be  —  well,  wouldn't  it  be  taking  a  neighborly  inter- 
est to  step  over  and  question  the  vans  a  little?  " 

And  we  both  of  us  thought  it  would  be  in  order, 
so  we  did  step  right  over  to  inquire. 

Being  the  vans  had  come  out  from  the  City,  we 
didn't  find  out  much  except  our  new  neighbor's  name : 
Burton  Fernandez. 

"  The  Burton  Fernandezes,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  as 
we  picked  our  way  back.  "  I  guess  when  we  write 
that  name  to  our  friends  in  our  letters,  they  won't 
think  we  live  in  the  woods  any  more.  Calliope," 
she  says,  "  it  come  to  me  this:  Don't  you  think  it 
would  be  real  nice  to  get  them  up  a  reception-sur- 
prise, and  all  go  there  some  night  as  soon  as  they  get 
settled,  and  take  our  own  refreshments,  and  get  ac- 


DREAM  207 

quainted  all  at  once,  instead  of  using  up  time  to  call, 
individual?  " 

"  Land,  yes,"  I  says,  "  I'd  like  to  do  that  to  every 
neighbor  that  comes  into  town.  But  you  — "  says 
I,  hesitating,  to  her  that  was  usually  so  exclusive  she 
counted  folks's  grand-folks  on  her  fingers  before  she 
would  go  to  call  on  them,  "  what  makes  you  — " 

"  Oh,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  you  can't  tell  me. 
Folks's  individualities  is  expressed  in  folks's  furni- 
ture. You  can't  tell  me  that,  with  those  belongings, 
we  can  go  wrong  in  our  judgment." 

"  Well,"  I  says,  "  /  can't  go  wrong,  because  I 
can't  think  of  anything  that'd  make  me  give  them 
the  cold  shoulder.  That's  another  comfort  about 
being  friends  to  everybody  —  you  don't  have  to  de- 
cide which  ones  you  want  to  know." 

"  You're  so  queer,  Calliope,"  says  Mis'  Sykes, 
tolerant.  "  You  miss  all  the  satisfaction  of  being 
exclusive.  And  you  can't  afford  not  to  be." 

"  Mebbe  not,"  says  I,  "  mebbe  not.  But  I'm 
willing  to  try  it.  Hang  the  expense !  "  says  I. 

Mis'  Sykes  didn't  waste  a  day  on  her  reception- 
surprise.  I  heard  of  it  right  off  from  Mis'  Holcomb 
and  Mis'  Toplady  and  two-three  more.  They  were 
all  willing  enough,  not  only  because  any  excitement 
in  the  village  is  like  a  personal  present  to  all  of 
us,  but  because  Mis'  Sykes  was  interested.  She's 
got  a  real  gift  for  making  folks  think  her  way  is  the 
way.  She's  a  real  leader.  Everybody  wears  a 


208        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

straw  hat  contented  till,  somewheres  near  Novem- 
ber, Mis'  Sykes  flams  out  in  felt,  and  then  you  be- 
gin right  off  to  feel  shabby  in  your  straw,  though 
new  from  the  store  that  Spring. 

"  It  does  seem  like  rushing  things  a  little,  though," 
says  Mis'  Holcomb  to  me,  very  confidential,  the 
next  day. 

"  Not  for  me,"  I  says.     "  I  been  vaccinated." 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  says  she. 

"  Not  even  the  small-pox  can  make  me  snub 
them,"  I  explains. 

"  Yes,  but  Calliope,"  says  Mis'  Toplady  in  a 
whisper,  "  suppose  it  should  turn  out  to  be  one  of 
them  awful  places  we  read  about.  They  have  good 
furniture." 

"  Well,"  says  I,  "  in  that  case,  if  thirty  to  forty 
of  us  went  in  with  our  baskets,  real  friendly,  and 
done  it  often  enough,  I  bet  we'd  either  drive  them 
out  or  turn  them  into  better  neighbors.  Where's 
the  harm?" 

"  Calliope,"  says  Mame  Holcomb,  "  don't  you 
draw  the  line  nowheresf" 

"  Yes,"  I  says,  mournful.  "  Them  on  Mars 
won't  speak  to  me  —  yet.  But  short  of  Mars  — 
no.  I  have  no  lines  up." 

We  heard  from  the  servant  that  came  down  on 
Tuesday  and  began  cleaning  and  settling,  that  the 
family  would  arrive  on  Friday.  We  didn't  get  much 
out  of  him  —  a  respectable-seeming  colored  man  but 


DREAM  209 

reticent,  very.  The  fact  that  the  family  servant  was 
a  man  finished  Mis'  Sykes.  She  had  had  a  strong 
leaning,  but  now  she  was  bent,  visible.  And  with 
an  item  that  appeared  Thursday  night  in  the  Friend- 
ship Village  Evening  Daily,  she  toppled  complete. 

"  Professor  and  Mrs.  Burton  Fernandez,"  the 
Supper  Table  Jottings  said,  u  are  expected  Friday  to 
take  possession  of  Oldmoxon  House,  506  Daphne 
street.  Professor  Fernandez  is  to  be  engaged  for 
some  time  in  some  academic  and  scholastic  work  in 
the  City.  Welcome,  Neighbors." 

"  Let's  have  our  reception-surprise  for  them  Sat- 
urday night,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  as  soon  as  she  had 
read  the  item.  "  Then  we  can  make  them  right  at 
home,  first  thing,  and  they  won't  need  to  tramp  into 
church,  feeling  strange,  Next-day  morning." 

"  Go  on  —  do  it,"  says  I,  affable. 

Mis'  Sykes  ain't  one  to  initiate  civic,  but  she's  the 
one  to  initiate  festive,  every  time. 

Mis'  Holcomb  and  Mis'  Toplady  and  me  agreed 
to  bake  the  cakes,  and  Mis'  Sykes  was  to  furnish 
the  lemonade,  being  her  husband  keeps  the  Post- 
office  store,  and  what  she  gets,  she  gets  wholesale. 
And  Mis'  Sykes  let  it  be  known  around  that  on  Sat- 
urday night  we  were  all  to  drop  into  her  house,  and 
go  across  the  street  together,  with  our  baskets,  to 
put  in  a  couple  of  hours  at  our  new  neighbors',  and 
make  them  feel  at  home.  And  everybody  was  look- 
ing forward  to  it. 


210         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

I've  got  some  hyacinth  bulbs  along  by  my  side 
fence  that  get  up  and  come  out,  late  April  and 
early  May,  and  all  but  speak  to  you.  And  it  hap- 
pened when  I  woke  up  Friday  morning  they  looked 
so  lovely,  I  couldn't  resist  them.  I  had  to  take  some 
of  them  up,  and  set  them  out  in  pots  and  carry  them 
around  to  a  few.  About  noon  I  was  going  along 
the  street  with  one  to  take  to  an  old  colored  washer- 
woman I  know,  that  never  does  see  much  that's 
beautiful  but  the  sky;  but  when  I  got  in  front  of 
Oldmoxon  House,  a  thought  met  me. 

"  To-day's  the  day  they  come,"  I  said  to  myself. 
"  Be  kind  of  nice  to  have  a  sprig  of  something  there 
to  welcome  them." 

So  my  feet  turned  me  right  in,  like  your  feet  do 
sometimes,  and  I  rang  the  front  bell. 

"  Here,"  says  I,  to  that  colored  servant  that 
opened  the  door,  "  is  a  posy  I  thought  your  folks 
might  like  to  see  waiting  for  them." 

He  started  to  speak,  but  somebody  else  spoke 
first. 

"How  friendly!"  said  a  nice-soft  voice  —  I 
noticed  the  voice  particular.  "  Let  me  thank  her." 

There  came  out  from  the  shadow  of  the  hall,  a 
woman  —  the  one  with  the  lovely  voice. 

"  I  am  Mrs.  Fernandez  —  this  is  good  of  you," 
she  said,  and  put  out  her  hands  for  the  plant. 

I  gave  it  to  her,  and  I  don't  believe  I  looked  sur- 
prised, any  more  than  when  I  first  saw  the  pictures 


DREAM  211 

of  the  Disciples,  that  the  artist  had  painted  their 
skin  dark,  like  it  must  have  been.  Mrs.  Fernandez 
was  dark  too.  But  her  people  had  come,  not  from 
Asia,  but  from  Africa. 

Like  a  flash,  I  saw  what  this  was  going  to  mean 
in  the  village.  And  in  the  second  that  I  stood  there, 
without  time  to  think  it  through,  something  told  me 
to  go  in,  and  try  to  get  some  idea  of  what  was  going 
to  be  what. 

"  May  I  come  inside  now  I'm  here?  "  I  says. 

She  took  me  into  the  room  that  was  the  most  set- 
tled of  any.  The  piano  was  there,  and  a  good  many 
books  on  their  shelves.  As  I  remember  back  now, 
I  must  just  have  stood  and  stared  at  them,  for  im- 
pressions were  chasing  each  other  across  my  head 
like  waves  on  a  heaving  sea.  No  less  than  that,  and 
mebbe  more. 

"  I  was  trying  to  decide  where  to  put  the  pictures," 
she  said.  u  Then  we  shall  have  everything  settled 
before  my  husband  gets  home  to-morrow." 

We  talked  about  the  pictures  —  they  were  photo- 
graphs of  Venice  and  of  Spain.  Then  we  talked 
about  the  garden,  and  whether  it  was  too  late  for 
her  to  plant  much,  and  I  promised  her  some  aster 
plants.  Then  I  saw  a  photograph  of  a  young  girl 
—  it  was  her  daughter,  in  Chicago  University,  who 
would  be  coming  home  to  spend  the  Summer.  Her 
son  had  been  studying  to  be  a  surgeon,  she  said. 

"  My  husband,"  she  told  me,  "  has  some  work  to 


212         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

do  in  the  library  in  the  City.  We  tried  to  live 
there  —  but  we  couldn't  bear  it." 

"  I'm  glad  you  came  here,"  I  told  her.  "  It's  as 
nice  a  little  place  as  any." 

"  I  suppose  so,"  she  says  only.  "  As  nice  as  — 
any." 

I  don't  think  I  stayed  half  an  hour.  But  when 
I  came  out  of  there  I  walked  away  from  Oldmoxon 
House  not  sensing  much  of  anything  except  a  kind 
of  singing  thanksgiving.  I  had  never  known  any- 
thing of  her  people  except  the  kind  like  our  colored 
wash-woman.  I  knew  about  the  negro  colleges  and 
all,  but  I  guess  I  never  thought  about  the  folks  that 
must  be  graduating  from  them.  I'd  always  thought 
that  there  might  be  somebody  like  Mis'  Fernandez, 
sometime,  a  long  way  off,  when  the  Lord  and  us  his 
helpers  got  around  to  it.  And  here  already  it  was 
true  of  some  of  them.  It  was  like  seeing  the  future 
come  true  right  in  my  face. 

When  I  shut  the  gate  of  Oldmoxon  House,  I  see 
Mis'  Sykes  peeking  out  her  front  door,  and  motion- 
ing to  me.  And  at  the  sight  of  her,  that  I  hadn't 
thought  of  since  I  went  into  that  house,  I  had  all  I 
could  do  to  keep  from  laughing  and  crying  together, 
till  the  street  rang  with  me.  I  crossed  over  and 
went  in  her  gate ;  and  her  eye-brows  were  all  cocked 
inquiring  to  take  in  the  news. 

"  Go  on,"  she  says,  "  and  tell  me  all  there  is  to 


DREAM  213 

tell.  Is  it  all  so  —  the  name  —  and  her  husband  — 
and  all?" 

"  Yes,"  I  says,  "  it's  all  so." 

"  I  knew  it  when  I  see  her  come,"  says  Mis'  Sykes. 
"  Her  hat  and  her  veil  and  her  simple,  good-cut 
black  clothes  —  you  can't  fool  me  on  a  lady." 

"  No,"  I  says.     "  You  can't  fool  me,  either." 

"  Well  now,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  there's  nothing 
to  hinder  our  banging  right  ahead  with  our  plan  for 
to-morrow  night,  is  there?  " 

"  Nothing  whatever,"  I  says,  u  to  hinder  me." 

Mis'  Sykes  jerked  herself  around  and  looked  at 
me  irritable. 

"  Why  don't  you  volunteer?  "  says  she.  "  I  hate 
to  dig  the  news  out  of  anybody  with  the  can- 
opener." 

I'd  have  given  a  good  deal  to  feel  that  I  didn't 
have  to  tell  her,  but  just  let  her  go  ahead  with  the 
reception  surprise.  I  knew,  though,  that  I  ought 
to  tell  her,  not  only  because  I  knew  her  through  and 
through,  but  because  I  couldn't  count  on  the  village. 
We're  real  democratic  in  the  things  we  know  about, 
but  let  a  new  situation  stick  up  its  head  and  we 
bound  to  the  other  side,  automatic. 

"  Mis'  Sykes,"  I  says,  "  everything  that  we'd 
thought  of  our  new  neighbor  is  true.  Also,  she's 
going  to  be  a  new  experience  for  us  in  a  way  we 
hadn't  thought  of.  She's  dark-skinned." 


214        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  A  brunette,"  says  Mis'  Sykes.  "  I  see  that 
through  her  veil  —  what  of  it?  " 

"  Nothing  —  nothing  at  all,"  says  I.  "  You  no- 
ticed then,  that  she's  colored?  " 

I  want  to  laugh  yet,  every  time  I  think  how  Mis' 
Postmaster  Sykes  looked  at  me. 

"  Colored!  "  she  says.  "  You  mean  —  you  can't 
mean  — " 

"  No,"  I  says,  "  nothing  dangerous.  It's  going 
to  give  us  a  chance  to  see  that  what  we've  always 
said  could  be  true  sometime,  away  far  off,  is  true  of 
some  of  them  now." 

Mis'  Sykes  sprang  up  and  began  walking  the 
floor. 

"  A  family  like  that  in  Oldmoxon  House  —  and 
my  nearest  neighbors,"  says  she,  wild.  "It's  out- 
rageious  —  outrageious." 

I  don't  use  my  words  very  good,  but  I  know  bet- 
ter than  to  say  "  outrageious."  I  don't  know  but  it 
was  her  pronouncing  it  that  way,  in  such  a  cause,  that 
made  me  so  mad. 

"  Mis'  Sykes,"  I  says,  "  Mis'  Fernandez  has  got 
a  better  education  than  either  you  or  I.  She's  a 
graduate  of  a  Southern  college,  and  her  two  chil- 
dren have  been  to  colleges  that  you  and  I  have  never 
seen  the  inside  of  and  never  will.  And  her  hus- 
band is  a  college  professor,  up  here  to  study  for  a 
degree  that  I  don't  even  know  what  the  letters 


DREAM  215 

stands  for.  In  what,"  says  I,  "  consists  your  and 
my  superiority  to  that  woman?  " 

"  My  gracious,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  "  ain't  you  got 
no  sense  of  fitness  to  you.  Ain't  she  black?  " 

"  Her  skin  ain't  the  same  color  as  ours,  you're 
saying,"  I  says.  "  Don't  it  seem  to  you  that  that 
reason  had  ought  to  make  a  cat  laugh?  " 

Mis'  Sykes  fair  wheeled  on  me.  "  Calliope 
Marsh,"  says  she,  "  the  way  you  set  your  opinions 
against  established  notions  is  an  insult  to  your 
kind." 

"  Established  notions,"  I  says  over  after  her. 
"  '  Established  notions.'  That's  just  it.  And  who 
is  it,  of  us  two,  that's  being  insulting  to  their  kind 
now,  Mis'  Sykes?" 

She  was  looking  out  the  window,  with  her  lips 
close-pressed  and  a  thought  between  her  narrowed 
eye-lids. 

"  I'll  rejoin  'em  —  or  whatever  it  is  you  call  it," 
she  says.  "  I'll  rejoin  'em  from  living  in  that  house 


next  to  me." 


"Mis'  Sykes!"  says  I.  "But  their  piano  and 
their  book-cases  and  their  name  are  just  the  same  as 
yesterday.  You  know  yourself  how  you  said  folks's 
furniture  expressed  them.  And  it  does  —  so  be  they 
ain't  using  left-overs  the  way  I  am.  I  tell  you,  I've 
talked  with  her,  and  I  know.  Or  rather  I  kept  still 
while  she  told  me  things  about  Venice  and  Granada 


2i6         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

where  she'd  been  and  I  hadn't.  You've  got  all  you 
thought  you  had  in  that  house,  and  education  be- 
sides. Are  you  the  Christian  woman,  Mis'  Sykes, 
to  turn  your  nose  up  at  them?  " 

"  Don't  throw  my  faith  in  my  face,"  says  she,  ir- 
ritable. 

"  Well,"  I  says,  "  I  won't  twit  on  facts.  But 
anybody'd  think  the  Golden  Rule's  fitted  neat  onto 
some  folks  to  deal  with,  and  is  left  flap  at  loose  ends 
for  them  that  don't  match  our  skins.  Is  that  sense, 
or  ain't  it?  " 

"  It  ain't  the  skin,"  she  says.  "  Don't  keep  harp- 
ing on  that.  It's  them.  They're  different  by  na- 
ture." 

Then  she  says  the  great,  grand  motto  of  the  little 
thin  slice  of  the  human  race  that's  been  changed  into 
superiority. 

"  You  can't  change  human  nature !  "  says  she,  tick- 
ing it  out  like  a  clock. 

"  Can't  you?  "  says  I.  "  Can't  you?  I'm  inter- 
ested. If  that  was  true,  you  and  I  would  be  swing- 
ing by  our  tails,  this  minute,  sociable,  from  your 
clothes-line." 

By  this  time  she  didn't  hear  anything  anybody 
said  back  —  she'd  got  to  that  point  in  the  argu- 
ment. 

"  If,"  she  says,  positive,  "  if  the  Lord  had  in- 
tended dark-skinned  folks  to  be  different  from  what 
they  are,  he'd  have  seen  to  it  by  now." 


DREAM  217 

I  shifted  with  her  obliging. 

"  Then,"  says  I,  "  take  the  Fernandez  family,  in 
the  Oldmoxon  House.  They're  different.  They're 
more  different  than  you  and  I  are.  What  you  going 
to  do  about  it?  " 

Mis'  Sykes  stamped  her  foot.  "  How  do  you 
know,"  she  says,  "  that  the  Lord  intended  them  to 
be  educated?  Tell  me  that!  " 

I  sat  looking  down  at  her  three-ply  Ingrain  car- 
pet for  a  minute  or  two.  Then  I  got  up,  and  asked 
her  for  her  chocolate  frosting  receipt. 

"  I'm  going  to  use  that  on  my  cake  for  to-morrow 
night,"  I  says.  "  And  do  you  want  me  to  help  with 
the  rest  of  the  telephoning?  " 

'  What  do  you  mean?  "  she  says,  frigid.  "  Yoi? 
don't  think  for  a  minute  I'm  going  on  with  that,  I 
hope?" 

"  On  with  it?  "  I  says.  "  Didn't  you  tell  me  you 
had  the  arrangements  about  all  made?  " 

She  sunk  back,  loose  in  her  chair.  "  I  shall  be 
the  Laughing  Stock, —  the  Laughing  Stock,"  she 
says,  looking  wild  and  glazed. 

"  Yes,"  says  I,  deliberate,  determined  and  serene, 
*'"  they'll  say  you  were  going  to  dance  around  and 
cater  to  this  family  because  they've  moved  into  the 
Oldmoxon  House.  They'll  say  you  wanted  to  make 
sure,  right  away,  to  get  in  with  them.  They'll  re- 
peat what  you've  been  saying  about  the  elegant  fur- 
niture, in  good  taste.  And  about  the  academic  and 


2i8        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

scholastic  work  being  done.  And  about  these  folks 
being  a  distinct  addition  to  Friendship  Village  so- 
ciety—" 

"  Don't,  Calliope  — oh,  don't!  "  said  Mis'  Sykes, 
faint. 

"  Well,  then,"  I  says,  getting  up  to  leave,  "  go 
on  ahead  and  act  neighborly  to  them,  the  once,  and 
decide  later  about  keeping  it  up,  as  you  would  with 
anybody  else." 

It  kind  of  swept  over  me  —  here  we  were,  stand- 
ing there,  bickering  and  haggling,  when  out  there  on 
the  planet  that  lay  around  Daphne  Street  were  loose 
ends  of  creation  to  catch  up  and  knit  in. 

"  My  gracious,"  I  says,  "  I  ain't  saying  they're  all 
all  right,  am  I  ?  But  I'm  saying  that  as  fast  as  those 
that  try  to  grow,  stick  up  their  heads,  it's  the  busi- 
ness of  us  that  tootle  for  democracy,  and  for  evolu- 
tion, to  help  them  on." 

She  looked  at  me,  pitying. 

"  It's  all  so  much  bigger  than  that,  Calliope,"  she 
says. 

"  True,"  says  I,  "  for  if  some  of  them  stick  up 
their  heads,  it  proves  that  more  of  them  could  —  if 
we  didn't  stomp  'em  down." 

I  got  out  in  the  air  of  the  great,  gold  May  day, 
that  was  like  another  way  of  life,  leading  up  from 
our  way.  I  took  in  a  long  breath  of  it  —  and  that 
always  helps  me  to  see  things  big. 

"One  Spring,"  I  says,  "One  world — one  God 


DREAM  219 

—  one  life  —  one  future.  Wouldn't  you  think  we 
could  match  ourselves  up?  " 

But  when  I  got  in  my  little  house,  I  looked  around 
on  the  homely  inside  of  it  —  that  always  helps  me 
to  think  how  much  better  things  can  be,  when  we 
really  know  how.  And  I  says : 

"  Oh,  God,  we  here  in  America  got  up  a  terrible 
question  for  you  to  help  us  settle,  didn't  we?  Well, 
help  us !  And  help  us  to  see,  whatever's  the  way  to 
settle  anything,  that  giving  the  cold  shoulder  and 
the  uplifted  nose  to  any  of  the  creatures  you've  made 
ain't  the  way  to  settle  nothing.  Amen." 

Next  morning  I  was  standing  in  my  door-way, 
breathing  in  the  fresh,  gold  air,  when  in  at  the  gate 
came  that  colored  man  of  Mis'  Fernandez's,  and  he 
had  a  big  bouquet  of  roses.  Not  roses  like  we  in 
the  village  often  see.  They  were  green-house  bred. 

"  Mis'  Fernandez's  son  done  come  home  las'  night 
and  brung  'em,"  says  the  man. 

"  Her  son,"  I  says,  "  from  college?  " 

"  No'm,"  says  the  man.     "  F'om  the  war." 

"  From  the  what?  "  I  says. 

"  F'om  the  war,"  he  says  over.     "  F'om  U'pe." 

He  must  have  thought  I  was  crazy.  For  a  min- 
ute I  stared  at  him,  then  I  says  "  Glory  be!  "  and  I 
began  to  laugh.  Then  I  told  him  to  tell  Mis'  Fer- 
nandez that  I'd  be  over  in  half  an  hour  to  thank 
her  myself  for  the  flowers,  and  in  half  an  hour  I 


220        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

was  going  up  to  her  front  door.  I  had  to  make 
sure. 

"  Your  son,"  I  says,  forgetting  all  about  the 
roses,  "  he's  in  the  American  army?  " 

"  He  was,"  she  said.  "  He  fought  in  France  for 
eighteen  months.  Now  he  has  been  discharged." 

"  Oh,"  I  says  to  myself,  "  that  arranges  every- 
thing. It  must." 

"  Perhaps  you  will  let  me  tell  you,"  she  said. 
"  He  comes  back  to  us  wearing  the  cross  of  war." 

"  The  cross  of  war!  "  I  cried.  "  That  they  give 
when  folks  save  folks  in  battle?"  I  said  it  just 
like  saving  folks  is  the  principal  business  of  it  all. 

"  My  son  did  save  a  wounded  officer  in  No-man's 
land,"  she  told  me.  "  The  officer  —  he  was  a  white 


man." 


"  Oh,"  I  says,  and  I  couldn't  say  another  word 
till  I  managed  to  ask  her  if  her  son  had  been  in  the 
draft. 

"  No,"    she    said.     "  He    volunteered    April    7, 


It  wasn't  until  I  got  out  in  the  street  that  I  re- 
membered I  hadn't  thanked  her  for  the  roses  at  all. 
But  there  wasn't  time  to  think  of  that. 

I  headed  straight  for  Mis'  Silas  Sykes.  She 
looked  awful  bad,  and  I  don't  think  probably  she'd 
slept  a  wink  all  night.  I  ask'  her  casual  how  the 
reception  was  coming  on,  and  she  kind  of  began  to 
cry. 


DREAM  221 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  hector  me  for  like  this," 
she  says.  "  Ain't  it  enough  that  I've  got  to  call 
folks  up  to-day  and  tell  them  I've  made  a  fool  of 
myself?" 

"  Not  yet,"  I  says.  "  Not  yet  you  ain't  made  one 
of  yourself,  Mis'  Sykes.  That's  to  come,  if  any. 
It  is  hard,"  I  says,  "  to  do  the  particular  thing  you'll 
have  to  do.  There's  them,"  I  says  crafty,  "  as'll 
gloat." 

"  I  thought  about  them  all  night  long,"  she  says, 
her  breath  showing  through  her  words. 

"  Then  think  no  more,  Mis'  Sykes,"  I  says,  "  be- 
cause there's  a  reason  over  there  in  that  house  why 
we  should  go  ahead  with  our  plan  —  and  it's  a 
reason  you  can't  get  around." 

She  looked  at  me,  like  one  looking  with  no  hope. 
And  then  I  told  her. 

I  never  saw  a  woman  so  checkered  in  her  mind. 
Her  head  was  all  reversed,  and  where  had  been  one 
notion,  another  bobbed  up  to  take  its  place,  and 
where  the  other  one  had  been  previous,  a  new  one 
was  dancing. 

"But  do  they  do  that?"  she  ask'.  "  Do  they 
give  war-crosses  to  negroes?" 

"  Why  not?"  I  says.  "France  don't  care  be- 
cause the  fore-fathers  of  these  soldiers  were  made 
slaves  by  us.  She  don't  lay  it  up  against  them. 
That  don't  touch  their  bravery.  England  never  has 
minded  dark  skins  —  look  at  her  East  Indians  and 


222        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Egyptians  that  they  say  are  everywhere  in  London. 
Nobody  cares  but  us.  Of  course  France  gives  ne- 
groes crosses  of  war  when  they're  brave  —  why 
shouldn't  she  ?" 

"  My  gracious,"  Mis'  Sykes  says,  "  but  what'll 
folks  say  here  if  we  do  go  ahead  and  recognize 
them?" 

"  Recognize  him!  "  I  cried.  "  Mis'  Sykes  —  are 
you  going  to  let  him  offer  up  his  life,  and  go  over 
to  Europe  and  have  his  bravery  recognized  there, 
and  then  come  back  here  and  get  the  cold  shoulder 
from  you  —  are  you?  Then  shame  on  us  all!  "  I 
says. 

Then  Mis'  Sykes  said  the  things  folks  always 
say:  "  But  if  we  recognize  them,  what  about  mar- 
riage?" 

"  See  here,"  says  I,  "  there's  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  tuberculosis  cases  in  this  country  to-day. 
And  more  hundreds  of  thousands  with  other  dis- 
eases. Do  we  set  the  whole  lot  of  them  apart,  and 
refuse  to  be  decent  to  them,  or  do  business  with 
them,  because  they  ought  not  to  marry  our  girls  and 
boys?  Don't  you  see  how  that  argument  is  just  an 
excuse?  " 

"  All  the  same,"  said  Mis'  Sykes,  "  it  might 
happen." 

"  Then  make  a  law  against  inter-marriage,"  I 
says.  "  That's  easy.  Nothing  comes  handier  than 
making  a  new  law.  But  don't  snub  the  whole  race 


DREAM  223 

—  especially  those  that  have  risked  their  lives  for 
you,  Mis'  Sykes!  " 

She  stared  at  me,  her  face  looking  all  triangular. 

"  It's  for  you  to  show  them  what  to  do,"  I  press-ed 
her.  "  They'll  do  what  you  do." 

Mis'  Sykes  kind  of  stopped  winking  and  breathing. 

"  I  could  make  them  do  it,  I  bet  you,"  she  says, 
proud. 

"  Of  course  you  could,"  I  egged  her  on.  "  You 
could  just  take  for  granted  everybody  meant  to  be 
decent,  and  carry  it  off,  matter-of-fact." 

She  stood  up  and  walked  around  the  room,  her 
curl-papers  setting  strange  on  her  proud  ways. 

"  Don't  figger  on  it,  Mis'  Sykes,"  I  says.  "  Just 
think  how  much  easier  it  is  to  be  leading  folks  into 
something  they  ain't  used  to  than  to  have  them  all 
laughing  at  you  behind  your  back  for  getting  come 
up  with." 

It  wasn't  the  highest  motive  —  but  then,  I  only 
used  it  for  a  finishing  touch.  And  for  a  tassel  I  says, 
moving  off  rapid: 

"  Now  I'm  going  home  to  stir  up  my  cake  for  the 
party." 

She  didn't  say  anything,  and  I  went  off  up  the  street. 

I  remember  it  was  one  of  the  times  when  it  came 
to  me,  strong,  that  there's  something  big  and  near 
working  away  through  us,  to  get  us  to  grow  in  spite 
of  us.  In  spite  of  us. 

And  when  I  had  my  chocolate  cake  baked,  I  lay 


224        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

down  on  the  lounge  in  my  dining-room,  and  planned 
out  how  nice  it  was  going  to  be,  that  night.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  little  shower,  and  then  the  sun  came 
back  again;  so  by  the  time  we  all  began  to  move  to- 
ward Mis'  Sykes's,  between  seven  and  eight,  every- 
thing was  fresh  and  earth-smelling  and  wet-sweet 
green.  And  there  was  a  lovely,  flowing  light,  like 
in  a  dream. 

Whenever  I  have  a  hard  thing  to  do,  be  it  house- 
cleaning  or  be  it  quenching  down  my  pride,  I  always 
think  of  the  way  I  see  Mis'  Sykes  do  hers.  Dressed 
in  her  best  gray  poplin  with  a  white  lace  yoke,  and 
hair  crimped  front  and  back,  Mis'  Sykes  received  us 
all,  reserved  and  formal  —  not  with  her  real  so- 
ciety pucker,  but  with  her  most  leader-like  look. 

Everybody  was  there  —  nobody  was  lacking. 
There  must  have  been  above  fifty.  I  couldn't  talk 
for  trying  to  reckon  how  each  of  them  would  act,  as 
soon  as  they  knew. 

"  Blistering  Benson,"  says  Timothy  Toplady,  that 
his  wife  had  got  him  into  his  frock-tail  coat  that  he 
keeps  to  be  pall-bearer  in,  " —  kind  of  nice  to  wel- 
come in  another  first  family,  ain't  it?  " 

Mis'  Sykes  heard  him.  u  Timothy  Toplady,  you 
ain't  enough  democracy  to  shake  a  stick  at,"  she 
says,  regal;  and  left  him  squenched,  but  with  his  lips 
moving. 

"  I'm  just  crazy  to  get  upstairs  in  the  Oldmoxon 


DREAM  225 

House,"  says  Mis'  Hubbelthwait.  "  How  do  you 
s'pose  they've  got  it  furnished?  " 

"  They're  thinking  more  about  the  furniture  of 
their  heads  than  of  their  upstairs  chambers,"  snaps 
back  Mis'  Sykes.  And  I  see  anew  that  whatever 
Mis'  Sykes  goes  into,  she  goes  into  up  to  her  eyes, 
thorough  and  firm. 

"  Calliope,"  she  says,  "  you  might  run  over  now 
and  see  how  they're  situated.  And  be  there  with 
them  when  we  come." 

I  knew  that  Mis'  Sykes  couldn't  quite  bear  to 
make  her  speech  with  me  looking  at  her,  so  I  waited 
out  in  the  entry  and  heard  her  do  it  —  I  couldn't 
help  that.  And  honest,  I  think  my  respect  for  her 
rose  while  she  done  so,  almost  as  much  as  if  she'd 
meant  what  she  said.  Mis'  Sykes  is  awful  convinc- 
ing. She  can  make  you  wish  you'd  worn  gloves  or 
went  without,  according  to  the  way  she's  done  her- 
self; and  so  it  was  that  night,  in  the  cause  she'd 
taken  up  with,  unbeknownst. 

She  rapped  on  the  table  with  the  blue-glass  paper 
weight. 

"  Friends,"  she  says,  distinct  and  serene,  and  ev- 
erybody's buzzing  simmered  down.  "  Before  we  go 
over,  I  must  tell  you  a  little  about  our  new  —  neigh- 
bors. The  name  as  you  know  is  Fernandez  —  Bur- 
ton Fernandez.  The  father  is  a  college  professor, 
now  in  the  City  doing  academic  and  scholastic  work 
to  a  degree,  as  they  say.  The  daughter  is  in  one  of 


226        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

our  great  universities.  The  mother,  a  graduate  of 
a  Southern  college,  has  traveled  extensive  in  Venice 
and  —  and  otherwise.  I  can't  believe  — "  here  her 
voice  wobbled  just  for  an  instant,  "  I  can't  believe 
that  there  is  one  here  who  will  not  understand  the 
significance  of  our  party  when  I  add  that  the  family 
happens  to  be  colored.  I  am  sure  that  you  will  agree 
with  me  —  with  me  —  that  these  elegant  educations 
merit  our  approbation." 

She  made  a  little  pause  to  let  it  sink  in.  Then 
she  topped  it  off.  She  told  them  about  the  returned 
soldier  and  the  cross  of  war. 

"  If  there  is  anybody,"  said  she  —  and  I  knew 
how  she  was  glancing  round  among  them;  "  if  there 
is  anybody  who  can't  appreciate  that,  we'll  gladly  ex- 
cuse them  from  the  room." 

Yes,  she  done  it  magnificent.  Mis'  Sykes  carried 
the  day,  high-handed.  I  couldn't  but  remember,  as 
I  slipped  out,  how  in  Winter  she  wears  ear-muffs  till 
we've  all  come  to  consider  going  without  them  is 
affected. 

I  ran  across  the  street,  still  in  that  golden,  pouring 
light.  In  the  Oldmoxon  House  was  a  surprise. 
Sitting  with  Mrs.  Fernandez  before  the  little  light 
May  fire,  was  her  husband,  and  a  slim,  tall  girl  in 
a  smoky  brown  dress,  that  was  their  daughter,  home 
from  her  school  to  see  her  brother.  Then  the  sol- 
dier boy  came  in.  Even  yet  I  can't  talk  much  about 
him :  A  slight,  silent  youth,  that  had  left  his  senior 


DREAM  227 

year  at  college  to  volunteer  in  the  army,  and  had 
come  home  now  to  take  up  his  life  as  best  he  could; 
and  on  the  breast  of  his  uniform  shone  the  little 
cross,  won  by  saving  his  white  captain,  under  fire. 

I  sat  with  them  before  their  hearth,  but  I  didn't 
half  hear  what  they  said.  I  was  looking  at  the 
room,  and  at  the  four  quiet  folks  that  had  done  so 
much  for  themselves  —  more  than  any  of  us  in  the 
village,  in  proportion  —  and  done  it  on  paths  none 
of  us  had  ever  had  to  walk.  And  the  things  I  was 
thinking  made  such  a  noise  I  couldn't  pay  attention 
to  just  the  talk.  Over  and  over  it  kept  going 
through  my  head:  In  fifty  years.  In  fifty  years! 

At  last  came  the  stir  and  shuffle  I'd  been  waiting 
for  and  the  door-bell  rang. 

"Don't  go,"  they  said,  when  I  sprang  up;  and 
they  followed  me  into  the  hall.  So  there  we  were 
when  the  door  opened,  and  everybody  came  crowd- 
ing in. 

Mis'  Sykes  was  ahead,  and  it  came  to  me,  when  I 
saw  how  deathly  pale  she  was,  that  a  prejudice  is  a 
living  thing,  after  all  —  not  a  dead  thing;  and  that 
to  them  that  are  in  its  grasp,  your  heart  has  got  to 
go  out  just  as  much  as  to  them  that  suffer  from  it. 

I  waved  my  hand  to  them  all,  promiscuous,  crowd- 
ing in  with  their  baskets. 

"  Neighbors,"  I  says,  "  here's  our  new  neighbors. 
Name  yourselves  gradual." 

They  set  their  baskets  in  the  hall,  and  came  into 


228         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

the  big  room  where  the  fire  was.  And  I  was  kind 
of  nervous,  because  our  men  are  no  good  on  earth 
at  breaking  the  ice,  except  with  a  pick;  and  our 
women,  when  they  get  in  a  strange  room,  are  awful 
apt  to  be  so  taken  up  looking  round  them  that  they 
forget  to  work  up  anything  to  say. 

But  I  needn't  have  worried.  No  sooner  had  we 
sat  down  than  somebody  spoke  out,  deep  and  full. 
Standing  in  the  midst  of  us  was  Burton  Fernandez, 
and  it  was  him.  And  his  voice  went  as  a  voice  goes 
when  it's  got  more  to  carry  than  just  words,  or  just 
thoughts. 

"  My  friends,"  he  said,  "  I  cannot  bear  to  have 
you  put  yourselves  in  a  false  position.  When  you 
came,  perhaps  you  didn't  know.  I  mean  —  did  you 
think,  perhaps,  that  we  were  of  your  race?  " 

It  was  Mis'  Sykes  who  answered  him,  grand  and 
positive,  and  as  if  she  was  already  thinking  up  her 
answer  when  she  was  born. 

"  Certainly  not,"  she  says.  "  We  we^e  informed 
—  all  of  us."  Then  I  saw  her  get  herself  together 
for  something  tremenjus,  that  should  leave  no  doubt 
in  anybody's  mind.  "  What  of  that?  "  says  she. 

He  stood  still  for  a  minute.  He  had  deep-set 
eyes  and  a  tired  face  that  didn't  do  anything  to  itself 
when  he  talked.  But  his  voice  —  that  did.  And 
when  he  began  to  speak  again,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  voice  of  his  whole  race  was  coming  through  him. 

"  My  friends,"  he  said,  "  how  can  we  talk  of  other 


DREAM  229 

things  when  our  minds  are  filled  with  just  what  this 
means  to  us?  " 

We  all  kept  still.  None  of  us  would  have  known 
how  to  say  it,  even  if  we  had  known  what  to  say. 

He  said:  "  I'm  not  speaking  of  the  difficulties 
—  they  don't  so  much  matter.  Nothing  matters  — 
except  that  even  when  we  have  made  the  struggle, 
then  we're  despised  no  less.  We  don't  often  talk  to 
you  about  it  —  it's  the  surprise  of  this  —  you  must 
forgive  me.  But  I  want  you  to  know  that  from  the 
time  I  began  my  school  life,  there  have  been  m'any 
who  despised,  and  a  few  who  helped,  but  never  until 
to-night  have  there  been  any  of  your  people  with  the 
look  and  word  of  neighbor  —  never  once  in  our  lives 
until  to-night." 

In  the  silence  that  fell  when  he'd  finished,  I  sat 
there  knowing  that  even  now  it  wasn't  like  he  thought 
it  was  —  and  I  wished  that  it  had  been  so. 

He  put  his  hand  on  his  boy's  shoulder. 

"  It's  for  his  sake,"  he  said,  "  that  I  thank  you 
most." 

Mis'  Sykes  was  equal  to  that,  too. 

u  In  the  name  of  our  whole  town,"  she  says  to 
that  young  soldier,  "  we  thank  you  for  what  you've 
done." 

He  just  nodded  a  little,  and  nobody  said  any- 
thing more.  And  it  came  to  me  that  most  every- 
thing is  more  so  than  we  most  always  suppose  it  to 
be. 


230        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

When  Mis'  Toplady  don't  know  quite  what  to  do 
with  a  minute,  she  always  brings  4ier  hands  together 
in  a  sort  of  spontaneous-sounding  clap,  and  kind  of 
bustles  her  shoulders.  She  done  that  now. 

"  I  motion  I'll  take  charge  of  the  refreshments," 
she  says.  "Who'll  volunteer?  I'm  crazy  to  see 
what-all  we've  brought." 

Everybody  laughed,  and  rustled,  easy.  And  I 
slipped  over  to  the  daughter,  standing  by  herself  by 
the  fire-place. 

"  You  take,  don't  you?  "  I  ask'  her. 

u  '  Take?  '  "  she  says,  puzzled. 

"  Music,  I  mean,"  I  told  her.  (We  always  mean 
music  when  we  say  "  take  "  in  Friendship  Village.) 

"  No,"  she  says,  "  but  my  brother  plays,  some- 


times." 


The  soldier  sat  down  to  the  piano,  when  I  asked 
him,  and  he  played,  soft  and  strong,  and  something 
beautiful.  His  cross  shone  on  his  breast  when  he 
moved.  And  me,  I  stood  by  the  piano,  and  I  heard 
the  soul  of  the  music  come  gtentling  through  his  soul, 
just  like  it  didn't  make  any  difference  to  the  music, 
one  way  or  the  other.  .  .  . 

Music.  Music  that  spoke.  Music  that  sounded 
like  laughing  voices.  .  .  .  No,  for  it  was  laughing 
voices.  .  .  . 

I  opened  my  eyes,  and  there  in  my  dining-room, 
by  the  lounge,  stood  Mis'  Toplady  and  Mis'  Hoi- 


DREAM  231 

comb,  laughing  at  me  for  being  asleep.  Then  they 
sat  down  by  me,  and  they  didn't  laugh  any  more. 

"  Calliope,"  Mis'  Toplady  says,  "  Mis'  Sykes  has 
been  round  to  everybody,  and  told  them  about  the 
Oldmoxon  House  folks." 

"  And  she  took  a  vote  on  what  to  do  to-night," 
says  Mame  Holcomb. 

"  Giving  a  little  advice  of  her  own,  by  the  way- 
side," Mis'  Toplady  adds. 

I  sat  up  and  looked  at  them.  With  the  soldier's 
music  still  in  my  ears,  I  couldn't  take  it  in. 

"  You  don't  mean  — "  I  tried  to  ask  them. 

"  That's  it,"  says  Mis'  Toplady.  "  Everybody 
voted  to  have  a  public  meeting  to  honor  the  soldiers 
—  the  colored  soldier  with  the  rest.  But  that's  as 
far  as  it  will  go." 

"  But  he  don't  want  to  be  honored!"  I  cried. 
"He  wants  to  be  neighbored  —  the  way  anybody 
does  when  they're  worth  it." 

"  Mis'  Sykes  says,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  "  that  we 
mustn't  forget  what  is  fitting  and  what  isn't." 

And  Mis'  Holcomb  added:  "  She  carried  it  off 
grand.  Everybody  thinks  just  the  way  she  does." 

My  reception-surprise  cake  stood  ready  on  the 
table.  After  a  while,  we  three  sat  down  around  it, 
and  cut  it  for  ourselves.  But  all  the  while  we  ate, 
that  soldier's  music  was  still  playing  for  me;  and 
what  hadn't  happened  was  more  real  for  me  than 
the  things  that  were  true. 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  * 

When  the  New  Race  comes  —  those  whom  Hud- 
son calls  "  that  blameless,  spiritualized  race  that  is 
to  follow  " —  surely  they  will  look  back  with  some 
sense  of  actual  romance  upon  the  faint  tapers  which 
we  now  light,  both  individual  and  social  tapers. 
They  will  make  their  allowance  for  us,  as  do 
we  for  the  ambiguous  knights  of  chivalry.  And 
while  the  New  Race  will  shudder  at  us  —  at  our  dis- 
organization with  its  war,  its  poverty  and  its  other 
crime  —  yet  I  think  that  they  will  love  us  a  little  for 
our  ineffectual  ministries,  as  already  we  love  them 
for  exceeding  our  utmost  dream. 

DON'T  you  love  a  love-story;  starting  right  be- 
fore your  eyes  as  casual  as  if  it  was  preserves  getting 
cooked  or  parsley  coming  up?  It  doesn't  often  hap- 
pen to  me  to  see  one  start,  but  once  it  did.  It  didn't 
start  like  anything  at  all  that  was  going  to  be  any- 
thing, but  just  still  and  quiet,  same  as  the  stars  come 
out.  I  guess  that's  the  way  most  great  things  move, 
isn't  it?  Still  and  quiet,  like  stars  coming  out.  Or 
similar  to  stars. 

It  was  the  time  of  the  Proudfits'  big  what-they- 

1  Copyright,   1913,  The  Delineator. 

232 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  233 

called  week-end  parties,  and  it  was  the  Saturday  of 
the  biggest  of  them,  when  a  dozen  city  people  came 
down  to  Friendship  Village  for  the  lark.  And  with 
them  was  to  come  a  Piano  Lady  and  a  Violin  Man 
—  and  a  man  I'd  known  about  in  the  magazines,  a 
Novel-and-Poem  Man  that  writes  the  kind  of  things 
that  gets  through  all  the  walls  between  you  and  the 
world,  so's  you  can  talk  to  everything  there  is.  I 
was  crazy  to  see  the  Novel-and-Poem  Man  —  from 
behind  somewheres,  though,  so's  he  wouldn't  see  me 
and  look  down  on  me.  And  when  Miss  Clementina 
Proudfit  asked  me  to  bring  her  out  some  things  from 
the  city  Saturday  night,  chocolate  peppermints  and 
red  candles  and  like  that,  and  said  she'd  send  the 
automobile  to  the  train  for  me  to  fetch  up  the  things 
and  see  the  decorations,  I  was  real  pleased.  But  I 
was  the  most  excited  about  maybe  seeing  the  Poem- 
and-Novel  Man. 

"  What's  he  like,  Miss  Clementina?  "  I  ask'  her. 
"  When  I  hear  his  name  I  feel  like  when  I  hear  the 
President's.  Or  even  more  that  way." 

"  I've  never  met  him,"  she  says.  "  Mother 
knows  him  —  he's  her  lion,  not  mine." 

"  He  writes  lovely  things,"  I  says,  "  things  that 
makes  you  feel  like  everybody's  way  of  doing  is  only 
lukewarm,  and  like  you  could  just  bring  yourself  to 
a  boil  to  do  good  and  straighten  things  out  in  the 
world,  no  matter  what  the  lukewarm-way  folks 
thought." 


234        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Miss  Clementina  looked  over  to  me  with  a  won- 
derful way  she  had  —  beautiful  face  and  beautiful 
eyes  softening  to  Summer. 

"  I  know  —  know/'  she  says;  "  I  dread  meeting 
him,  for  fear  he  doesn't  mean  it." 

I  knew  what  she  meant.  You  can  mean  a  thing 
you  write  in  a  book,  or  that  you  say  in  talk,  or  for 
other  folks  to  do.  But  meaning  it  for  living  it  — 
that's  different. 

I  came  out  from  the  city  that  night  on  the  ac- 
commodation, tired  to  death  and  loaded  down  with 
bundles  for  everybody  in  Friendship  Village.  Folks 
used  to  send  into  town  by  me  for  everything  but 
stoves  and  wagons,  though  I  wouldn't  buy  anything 
there  except  what  you  can't  buy  in  the  village: 
lamb's-wool  for  comforters,  and  cut-glass  and  baby- 
pushers,  and  shrimps  —  that  Silas  won't  keep  in  the 
post-office  store,  because  they  don't  agree  with  his 
stomach.  Well,  I  was  all  packages  that  night,  and 
it  was  through  dropping  one  in  the  seat  in  front  of 
me  that  I  first  saw  the  little  boy. 

He  was  laying  down,  getting  to  sleep  if  he  could 
and  pulling  his  eyes  open  occasional  to  see  what  was 
going  on  around  him.  His  mother  had  had  the  seat 
turned,  and  she  sat  there  beyond  him,  facing  me, 
and  I  noticed  her  —  flat  red  cheeks,  an  ostrich 
feather  broke  in  the  middle,  blue  and  red  stone  rings 
on  three  fingers,  and  giving  a  good  deal  of  atten- 
tion to  studying  the  folks  around  her.  She  was  the 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  235 

kind  of  woman  you  see  and  don't  look  back  to, 
'count  of  other  things  interesting  you  more. 

But  the  little  boy,  he  was  different.  He  wasn't 
more  than  a  year  old,  and  he  didn't  look  that  — 
and  his  cheeks  were  flushed  and  his  eyelashes  and 
mouth  made  you  think  "  My!  "  I  remember  feel- 
ing I  didn't  see  how  the  woman  could  keep  from 
waking  him  up,  just  to  prove  he  was  hers  and  she 
could  if  she  wanted  to. 

Instead  of  that,  all  she  did  was  continually  to 
get  up  and  go  out  of  the  car.  Every  station  we 
stopped  at  —  and  the  accommodation  acts  like  it 
was  made  for  the  stations  and  not  the  stations  for 
it  —  she  was  up  and  out,  as  if  the  town  was  some- 
thing swimming  up  to  the  car-door  to  speak  to  her. 
She'd  leave  the  baby  asleep  in  the  seat,  and  I  won- 
dered what  would  happen  if  he  woke  up  while  she 
was  gone,  and  started  to  roll.  She  stayed  every 
time  up  till  after  the  train  started  —  I  didn't  won- 
der it  made  her  cold,  and  that  after  a  bit  she  put 
on  her  coat  before  she  went.  And  once  or  twice  she 
carried  out  her  valise  with  her,  as  if  she  might  have 
expected  somebody  to  be  there  to  get  it.  "  Mebbe 
she's  got  somebody's  laundry,"  thinks  I,  "  and  mebbe 
a  stranger  has  asked  her  to  bring  it  out  on  the  train 
and  she  can't  remember  what  station  it's  to  be  put 
off  at."  They  send  things  to  stations  along  the  way 
a  lot  on  the  accommodation  —  everybody  being 
neighbors,  so. 


236         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Well,  when  we  got  to  the  Junction,  out  she  went 
again,  cloak  and  valise  and  all.  But  I  didn't  think 
much  about  her  then,  because  at  the  Junction  it's  al- 
ways all  excitement,  being  that's  where  they  switch 
the  parlor  car  off  the  train,  and  whoever  is  in  it  for 
Friendship  Village  has  to  come  back  in  the  day  coach 
for  the  rest  of  the  way,  and  be  just  folks.  And 
among  those  that  came  back  that  night  was  the 
Brother-man. 

I  dunno  if  you'll  know  what  I  mean  by  that  name 
for  him.  Some  men  are  just  men,  like  they  thought 
God  made  them  just  for  the  pleasure  of  making 
them.  And  some  men  are  flying  around  like  they 
wanted  to  prove  that  the  Almighty  didn't  make  a 
mistake  when  He  created  them.  But  there  are  some 
men  that  just  live  like  God  hadn't  made  them  so 
much  as  that  they're  a  piece  of  Him,  and  they 
haven't  forgotten  it  and  they  feel  kindly  toward  all 
the  other  pieces.  Well,  this  man  was  one  of  the 
Brother-men.  I  knew  it  the  minute  I  saw  him. 

By  the  time  he  came  in  the  car,  moving  leisurely 
and  like  getting  a  seat  wasn't  so  interesting  as  most 
other  things,  there  wasn't  a  seat  left,  excepting  only 
the  turned  one  in  front  of  the  little  chap  asleep. 
The  man  looked  around  idle  for  a  minute  and  see 
that  they  wasn't  cloak  or  valise  keeping  that  seat, 
and  he  sat  down  and  opened  the  book  he'd  had  his 
finger  in  the  place  all  the  time,  and  allowed  to  read. 

There's  consid'rable  switching  to  do  at  the  June- 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  237 

tion,  time  we  get  started;  and  the  jolts  and  bounces 
did  just  exactly  what  I  thought  they  would  do  — 
woke  the  little  chap  up.  From  before  the  train 
started  he  begun  stirring  and  whimpering  —  that 
way  a  baby  does  when  it  wants  nothing  in  the  world 
but  a  hand  to  be  laid  on  it.  Isn't  it  as  if  its  mother's 
hand  was  a  kind  of  healing  that  big  folks  forget 
about  needing?  By  the  time  the  train  was  out  on 
the  road  in  earnest,  the  little  chap,  he  was  in  earnest, 
too.  And  he  just  what-you-might-say  yelled.  But 
no  mother  came.  They  wasn't  a  mother's  hand  with 
big  red  and  blue  rings  on  three  fingers  to  lay  on 
the  little  boy's  back.  And  there  wasn't  a  mother  of 
him  anywhere's  in  sight. 

In  a  minute  or  two  the  Brother-man  looked  up. 
He  hadn't  seemed  to  see  the  baby  before  or  to  sense 
that  he  was  a  baby.  And  he  looked  at  him  crying 
and  he  laid  his  book  down  and  he  looked  all  around 
him,  perplexish,  and  then  he  looked  over  to  me  that 
was  looking  at  him  perplexish,  too.  And  being  he 
was  a  man  and  I  wasn't,  I  got  right  up  and  went 
round  there  and  picked  the  little  chap  up  in  my  arms 
and  sat  down  with  him. 

"  His  ma  went  out  of  the  car  somewheres,"  I  ex- 
plained it. 

He  had  lifted  his  hat  and  jumped  up,  polite  as  if 
he  was  the  one  I'd  picked  up.  And  he  stood  look- 
ing down  at  me. 

"  I  wonder  if  I  couldn't  fetch  her,"  he  says  — 


238         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

and  his  voice  was  one  of  the  voices  that  most  says 
an  idea  all  alone.  I  mean  you'd  most  have  known 
what  he  meant  if  he'd  just  spoke  along  without  using 
any  words  —  oh,  well,  I  dunno  if  that  sounds  like 
anything,  but  I  guess  you  know  the  kind  I  mean. 
The  Novel-and-Poem  Man's  stories  are  the  same 
kind,  being  they  say  so  much  that  never  does  get 
set  up  in  type. 

The  baby  didn't  stop  crying  at  all  —  seems  as 
though  your  hands  don't  have  the  right  healing  un- 
less —  unless  —  well,  it  didn't  stop  nor  even  halt. 
And  so  I  says,  hesitating,  I  says:  "  You  wouldn't 
know  her,"  I  says.  "  I  been  watching  her.  I  could 
find  her  better  —  if  so  be  you  wouldn't  mind  taking 
the  baby." 

The  Brother-man  put  out  his  arms.  I  remem- 
ber I  looked  up  in  his  face  then,  and  he  was  smiling 
—  and  his  smile  talked  the  same  as  his  voice.  And 
his  face  was  all  full  of  what  he  meant.  He  had  one 
of  those  Summer  faces  like  Miss  Clementina's  — 
just  a  general  liking  of  the  minute  and  a  special 
liking  for  all  the  world.  And  what  he  said  made  me 
think  of  Summer,  too : 

"  Mind?  "  says  he.  "  Why  it's  like  putting  your 
cap  over  a  butterfly." 

He  took  the  little  fellow  in  his  arms,  and  it  was 
then  that  I  first  sensed  how  beautiful  the  Brother- 
man  was  —  strong  and  fine  and  quiet,  like  he  done 
whatever  he  done,  and  said  whatever  he  said,  all 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  239 

over  him,  soul  and  all,  and  didn't  just  speak  with  his 
muscles,  same  as  some.  And  the  baby,  he  was  beau- 
tiful, too,  big  and  fine  and  healthy  and  a  boy,  only 
not  still  a  minute  nor  didn't  know  what  quiet  meant. 
But  he  stopped  crying  the  instant  the  man  took  him, 
and  they  both  looked  at  each  other  like  —  oh,  like 
they  were  more  alike  than  the  years  between  them 
wanted  to  let  them  think.  Isn't  it  pitiful  and  isn't 
it  wonderful  —  when  two  folks  meet?  Big  or  little, 
nice  or  horrid,  pleasant  or  cross,  famous  or  ragged 
or  talking  or  scairt  —  it  don't  make  any  differ'nce. 
They're  just  brother-pieces,  broke  off  the  same  way. 
That  was  how  the  Brother-man  looked  down  at  the 
little  chap,  and  I  dunno  but  that  was  how  the  little 
chap  looked  up  at  him.  Because  the  little  thing 
threw  out  his  arms  toward  him,  and  we  both  see  the 
letter  under  his  blanket  pinned  to  his  chest. 

All  of  a  sudden,  I  understood  what  had  happened 
—  almost  without  the  use  of  my  brain,  as  you  do 
sometimes. 

"  Sit  down  a  minute,"  I  said  to  the  Brother-man. 
"  I  guess  mebbe  this  letter  tells  where  she  is." 

And  so  it  did.  It  was  written  in  pencil,  spelled 
irregular  and  addressed  uphill,  and  the  direction  told 
the  story  even  before  the  letter  did.  "  To  Any- 
body," the  direction  was.  And  the  inside  of  the 
letter  said: 

"  Take  care  of  my  Baby.  I  ain't  fit  and  never  was  and 
now  don't  think  to  be  anywheres  long.  Don't  look  for  me. 


240        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

The  baby  would  be  best  off  with  anybody  but  me,  and  don't 
think  to  be  anywheres  long  and  so  would  be  orphant  quite 
soon  sure.  He  ain't  no  name  so  best  not  put  mine  except. 

MOTHER. 

P.  S.  If  he  puts  out  his  hand  he  means  you  should  kiss 
his  hand  then  he  won't  cry.  Don't  forget,  then  he  won't 
cry. 

P.  S.  When  he  can't  get  to  sleep  he  can  get  to  sleep  if 
you  rub  the  back  of  his  neck. 

I  remember  how  the  Buother-man  looked  at  me 
when  we'd  got  it  spelled  out. 

"Oh,"  he  said  —  and  then  he  said  a  name  that 
sounded  like  somebody  calling  to  its  Father  from  in- 
side the  dark. 

I  hate  to  think  of  what  I  said.  I  said  it  kind  of 
mechanical  and  wooden,  the  way  we  get  to  be  from 
shifting  the  burdens  off  our  own  backs  where  they 
belong,  onto  somebody  else's  back  —  and  doing  it 
second-nature,  and  as  if  we  were  constructed  slant- 
ing so  that  burdens  could  slip  off.  What  I  said 
was: 

"  I  suppose  we'd  better  tell  the  conductor." 

"  Tell  the  conductor!"  said  he,  wondering. 
"What  on  earth  for?" 

"  I  dunno,"  says  I,  some  taken  back.  I  suppose 
I'd  had  some  far  notion  of  telling  him  because  he 
wore  a  uniform. 

"  What  do  we  want  to  tell  him  for?  "  this  Broth- 
er-man repeated.  "  We  know." 

Oh,  but  that's  come  back  to  me,  time  and  time 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  241 

again,  when  I've  thought  I  needed  help  in  taking 
care  of  somebody,  or  settling  something,  or  doing 
the  best  way  for  folks.  "  What  do  we  want  to  tell 
the  conductor  or  anybody  else  for?  We  know." 
And  ten  to  one  we  are  the  one  who  can  do  the  thing 
ourselves. 

"  But  what  are  we  going  to  do?  "  I  said.  I  think 
that  his  eyes  were  the  kind  of  eyes  that  just  make 
you  say  "What  are  we  going  to  do?"  and  not 
"  What  are  you  going  to  do?  "  or  "  What  are  they 
going  to  do?" — same  as  most  folks  start  to  say, 
same  as  I  had  started. 

For  the  first  time  the  Brother-man  looked  helpless 
—  but  'he  spoke  real  firm. 

"  Keep  him,"  he  says,  simple. 

"  Keep  him !  "  I  said  over  —  since  I  had  lived 
quite  a  while  in  a  world  where  those  words  are  not 
common. 

He  looked  down  thoughtful  at  the  little  chap 
who  was  lying  there,  contented,  going  here  and 
there  with  his  fists,  and  looking  up  at  the  lights  as 
if  he  was  reflecting  over  the  matter  some  himself. 

"  The  conductor,"  said  the  Brother-man,  "  would 
telegraph,  and  most  likely  find  the  mother.  If  he 
was  efficient  enough,  he  might  even  get  her  arrested. 
And  what  earthly  good  would  that  do  to  the  child? 
Our  concern  is  with  this  little  old  man  here,  with 
his  life  hanging  on  his  shoulders  waiting  to  be  lived. 
Isn't  it?  "  he  asked,  simple.  And  in  a  minute,  he 


242         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

added:  "I  always  hoped  that  this  would  never 
happen  to  me  —  because  when  it  does  happen, 
there's  only  one  thing  to  do:  Keep  them."  And 
he  added  in  another  minute :  "  I  don't  know  —  I 
ought  to  look  at  it  that  I've  been  saved  the  trouble 
of  going  out  and  finding  a  way  to  help  — "  only  you 
understand,  his  words  came  all  glossy  and  real  dif- 
ferent from  mine. 

I  tell  you,  anybody  like  that  makes  all  the  soul 
in  you  get  up  and  recognize  itself  as  being  you ;  and 
your  body  and  what  it  wants  and  what  it  is  afraid 
of  is  no  more  able  to  run  you  then  than  a  pinch  of 
dirt  would  be,  sprinkled  on  your  wings.  Before  I 
knew  it,  my  body  was  keeping  quiet,  like  a  child 
that's  been  brought  up  well.  And  my  soul  was  say- 
ing whatever  it  pleased. 

"  I'm  a  woman,"  I  said,  "  and  alone  in  the  world. 
I'm  the  one  to  take  him." 

"  I'm  alone  in  the  world  too,"  he  said,  "  and  I'm 
a  man.  So  I'm  just  as  able  to  care  for  him  as  you 
are.  I'll  keep  him." 

Then  he  looked  down  the  car,  kind  of  startled, 
and  began  smiling,  slow  and  nice. 

"  On  my  word,"  he  said,  "  I'd  forgotten  that  be- 
sides being  a  man  I'm  about  to  be  a  guest.  And 
this  little  old  chap  wasn't  included  in  the  invitation." 

I  looked  out  the  window  to  see  where  we  were 
getting,  and  there  we  were  drawing  over  the  Flats 
outside  Friendship  Village,  and  the  brakeman  came 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  243 

to  the  door  and  shouted  the  name.  When  I  hear 
the  name  that  way,  and  when  I  see  the  Fair  ground 
and  the  Catholic  church  steeple  and  the  canal  bridge 
and  the  old  fort  and  the  gas  house,  it's  always  as 
sweet  as  something  new,  and  as  something  old,  and 
it's  something  sweeter  than  either.  It  makes  me 
feel  happy  and  good  and  like  two  folks  instead  of 
one. 

"  Look  here,"  I  said,  brisk,  "  this  is  where  I  get 
off.  This  is  home.  And  I'm  going  to  take  this 
baby  with  me.  You  go  on  to  your  visiting  place  — 
so  be  you'll  help  me  off,"  I  says,  "  with  my  baby  and 
my  bundles  that's  for  half  of  Friendship  Village." 

"  Friendship  Village!"  he  said  over,  as  if  he 
hadn't  heard  the  man  call.  "  Is  this  Friendship 
Village?  Why,  then  this,"  he  said,  "  is  where  I'm 
going  too.  This  is  where  the  Proudfits  live,  isn't 
it?  "  he  said  —  and  he  said  some  more,  meditative, 
about  towns  acting  so  important  over  having  one 
name  and  not  another,  when  nobody  can  remember 
either  name.  But  I  hardly  heard  him.  He  was 
going  to  the  Proudfits'.  And  without  knowing  how 
I  knew  it,  I  knew  all  over  me,  all  of  a  sudden,  who 
he  was:  That  he  was  the  Novel-and-Poem  man 
himself. 

'  You  can't  be  him !  "  I  said  aloud.  I  don't  know 
what  I  was  looking  for  —  a  man  with  wings  or 
what.  But  it  wasn't  for  somebody  like  this  —  all 
simple  and  still  and  every  day  —  like  stars  coming 


244         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

out.  "  You  can't  be  him,"  says  I,  mentioning  his 
name.  "  He  was  to  get  here  this  afternoon  on  the 
Through." 

"  That  alone  would  prove  I'm  I,"  he  said,  merry. 
"  I  always  miss  the  Throughs." 

Think  of  that.  .  .  .  There  I'd  been  riding  all  that 
way  beside  him,  talking  to  him  as  familiar  as  if  he 
had  been  just  folks. 

It  seems  a  dream  when  I  think  of  it  now.  The 
Proudfits'  automobile  was  there  for  him  too  —  be- 
cause he  had  telegraphed  that  he  would  take  the 
next  train  —  as  well  as  for  me  and  the  chocolate 
peppermints  and  the  red  candles.  And  so,  before 
I  could  think  about  me  being  me  sure  enough,  there 
I  was  in  the  Proudfits'  car,  glassed  in  and  lit  up,  and 
a  stranger-baby  in  my  arms;  and  beside  me  the 
Novel-and-Poem  man  that  was  the  Brother-man  too. 
—  the  man  that  had  made  me  talk  through  walls 
with  everything  there  is.  Oh,  and  how  I  wanted 
to  tell  him!  And  when  I  tried  to  tell  him  what  he 
had  meant  to  me,  how  do  you  guess  it  came  out  of 
my  brain? 

"  I've  read  your  book,"  says  I,  like  a  goose. 

But  he  seemed  real  sort  of  pleased.  "  I've  been 
honored,"  he  said,  gentle. 

I  looked  up  at  him;  and  I  knew  how  he  knew  al- 
ready that  I  didn't  know  all  the  hard  parts  in  the 
book,  and  all  the  big  words,  and  some  of  the  little 
nice  things  he  had  tried  to  work  out  to  suit  him. 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  245 

And  it  seemed  as  if  any  praise  of  mine  would  only 
make  him  hurt  with  not  being  appreciated.  Still, 
I  wanted  my  best  to  say  something  out  of  the  grati- 
tude in  me. 

"  It  —  helped,"  I  said;  and  couldn't  say  more  to 
save  me. 

But  he  turned  and  looked  down  at  me  almost  as 
he  had  looked  at  the  little  chap. 

"  That  is  the  only  compliment  I  ever  try  to  get," 
he  said  to  me,  as  grave  as  grave. 

And  at  that  I  saw  plain  what  it  was  that  had  made 
him  seem  so  much  like  a  friend,  and  what  had  made 
me  think  to  call  him  the  Brother-man.  Why,  he 
was  folks,  like  me.  He  wasn't  only  somebody  big 
and  distinguished  and  name-in-the-paper.  He  was 
like  those  that  you  meet  all  the  time,  going  round 
the  streets,  talking  to  you  casual,  coming  out  of  their 
houses  quiet  as  stars  coming  out.  He  was  folks  and 
a  brother  to  folks;  and  he  knew  it,  and  he  seemed 
to  want  to  keep  letting  folks  know  that  he  knew  it. 
He  wasn't  the  kind  that  goes  around  thinking  "  Me, 
me,  me,"  nor  even  u  You  and  me."  It  was  "  You 
and  me  and  all  of  us  "  with  the  Brother-man. 

"  Isn't  it  strange,"  he  says  once,  while  we  rode 
along,  "  that  what  all  these  streets  and  lights  and 
houses  are  for,  and  what  the  whole  world  is  for  is 
helped  along  by  taking  just  one  little  chap  and  bring- 
ing him  up  —  bringing  him  up?  "  And  he  looked 
down  at  the  baby,  that  was  drowsing  off  in  my  arms, 


246        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

as  if  little  chaps  in  general  were  to  him  windows  into 
somewhere  else. 

The  Proudfit  house  was  lamps  from  top  to  bot- 
tom, but  I  could  see  from  the  glass  vestibule  that  the 
big  rooms  were  all  empty,  and  I  thought  mebbe  they 
hadn't  had  dinner  yet,  being  they  have  it  all  unholy 
hours  when  most  folks's  is  digested  and  ready  to 
let  them  sleep.  But  when  we  stepped  in  the  hall  I 
heard  a  little  tip-tap  of  strings  from  up  above,  and 
it  was  from  the  music-room  that  opens  off  the  first 
stair-landing,  and  dinner  was  over  and  they  were 
all  up  there;  and  the  Piano  Lady  and  the  Violin 
Man  were  gettin'  ready  to  play.  Madame  Proudfit 
had  heard  the  car,  and  came  down  the  stairs,  saying 
a  little  pleased  word  when  she  saw  the  Brother- 
man.  She  looked  lovely  in  black  lace,  and  jewels  I 
didn't  know  the  name  of,  and  she  was  gracious  and 
glad  and  made  him  one  of  the  welcomes  that  stay 
alive  afterwards  and  are  almost  people  to  you  to 
think  about.  The  Brother-man  kissed  her  hand,  and 
he  says  to  her,  some  rueful  and  some  wanting  to 
laugh : 

"  I'm  most  awfully  sorry  about  the  train, 
Madame  Proudfit.  But  —  I've  brought  two  of  us 
to  make  up  for  being  so  late.  Will  —  will  that  not 
do?  "  he  says. 

Madame  Proudfit  looked  over  at  me  with  a  smile 
that  was  like  people  too  —  only  her  smile  was  like 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  247 

nice  company  and  his  was  like  dear  friends;  and 
then  she  saw  the  baby. 

"  Calliope!  "  she  said,  "  what  on  earth  have  you 
been  doing  now?  " 

"  She  hasn't  done  it.  I  did  it,"  says  the  Brother- 
man.  "  Look  at  him !  You  rub  the  back  of  his 
neck  when  he  won't  sleep." 

Madame  Proudfit  looked  from  him  to  me. 

"  How  utterly,  extravagantly  like  both  of  you !  " 
Madame  Proudfit  said.  "  Come  in  the  library  and 
tell  me  about  it." 

We  went  in  the  big,  brown  library,  where  nothing 
looked  as  if  it  would  understand  about  this,  except, 
mebbe,  some  of  the  books  —  and  not  all  of  them  — 
and  the  fire,  that  was  living  on  the  hearth,  under- 
standing all  about  everything.  I  sat  by  the  fire  and 
pulled  back  the  little  chap's  blanket  and  undid  his 
coat  and  took  his  bonnet  off;  his  hair  was  all  mussed 
up  at  the  back  and  the  cheek  he'd  slept  on  was  warm- 
red.  Madame  Proudfit  and  the  Brother-man  stood 
on  the  hearth-rug,  looking  down.  Only  she  was 
looking  from  one  star  to  another,  and  the  Brother- 
man  and  I,  we  were  on  the  same  star,  looking  round. 

We  told  her  what  had  happened,  some  of  his  tell- 
ing and  some  of  mine.  It  came  over  me,  while  we 
were  doing  it,  that  what  had  sounded  so  sensible 
and  sure  in  the  train  and  in  the  automobile  and  in 
our  two  hearts  sounded  different  here  in  the  Proud- 


248         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

fits'  big,  brown  library,  with  Madame  Proudfit  in 
black  lace  and  jewels  I  didn't  know  the  name  of, 
listening.  But  then  I  looked  up  in  the  Brother- 
man's  face  and  I  got  right  back,  like  he  was  a  kind 
of  perpetual  telegraph,  the  feeling  of  its  being  sen- 
sible and  the  only  sensible  thing  to  do.  Sensible  in 
the  sense  of  your  soul  being  sensible,  and  not  just 
your  being  sensible  like  your  neighbors. 

u  But,  my  dear,  dear  children,"  Madame  Proud- 
fit  says,  and  stopped.  "  My  dear  children,"  she 
says  on,  "  what,  exactly,  are  you  going  to  do  with 
him?" 

"  Keep  him!  "  says  the  Brother-man  prompt,  and 
beamed  on  her  as  if  he  had  said  the  one  possible 
answer. 

"But  —  keep  him!"  says  Madame  Proudfit. 
"  How  '  keep  him  '  ?  Be  practical.  What  are  you 
going  to  do?  " 

It  makes  you  feel  real  helpless  when  folks  in  black 
lace  tell  you  to  be  practical,  as  if  that  came  before 
everything  else  —  especially  when  their  "  practical  " 
and  your  "  practical  "  might  as  well  be  in  two  differ- 
ent languages.  And  yet  Madame  Proudfit  is  kind 
and  good  too,  and  she  understands  that  you've  got 
to  help  or  you  might  as  well  not  be  alive;  and  she 
gives  and  gives  and  gives.  But  this  —  well,  she  saw 
the  need  and  all  that,  but  her  way  that  night  would 
have  been  to  give  money  and  send  the  little  chap 
away.  You  know  how  some  are.  They  can  under- 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  249 

stand  everything  good  and  kind  —  up  to  a  certain 
point.  And  that  point  is,  keep  him.  They  can't 
seem  to  get  past  that. 

"Keep  him!"  she  says.  "  Make  your  bachelor 
apartment  into  a  nursery?  Or  you,  Calliope,  leave 
him  to  mind  the  house  while  you  are  canvassing? 
Be  practical.  What,  exactly,  are  you  going  to  do?  " 

Then  the  Brother-man  frowned  a  little  —  I 
hadn't  known  he  could,  but  I  was  glad  he  knew 
how. 

"  Really,"  he  said,  "  I  haven't  decided  yet  on  the 
cut  of  his  knickerbockers,  or  on  what  college  he 
shall  attend,  or  whether  he  shall  spend  his  vacations 
at  home  or  abroad.  The  details  will  get  them- 
selves done.  I  only  know  I  mean  to  keep  him." 

She  shook  her  head  as  if  she  was  talking  to  a 
foreign  language;  then  we  heard  somebody  coming 
—  a  little  rustle  and  swish  and  afterwards  a  voice. 
These  three  things  by  themselves  would  have  made 
somebody  more  attractive  than  some  women  know 
how  to  be.  I'll  never  forget  how  she  seemed  when 
she  came  to  the  door  —  Miss  Clementina,  waiting 
to  speak  with  her  mother  and  not  knowing  anybody 
else  was  with  her. 

Honest,  I  couldn't  tell  what  her  dress  was  —  and 
me  a  woman  that  has  turned  her  hand  to  dress- 
making. It  was  all  thin,  like  light,  and  it  had  all 
little  ways  of  hanging  that  made  you  know  you  never 
could  make  one  like  it,  so's  you  might  as  well  enjoy 


250         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

yourself  looking  and  not  fuss  with  trying  to  remem- 
ber how  it  was  put  together.  But  her  dress  wasn't 
so  much  like  light  as  her  face.  Miss  Clementina's 
face  —  oh,  it  was  like  the  face  of  a  beautiful  woman 
that  somebody  tells  you  about,  and  that  you  never 
do  get  to  see,  and  if  you  did,  like  enough  she  might 
not  be  so  beautiful  after  all  —  but  you  always  think 
of  her  as  being  the  way  you  mean  when  you  say 
"  beautiful."  Miss  Clementina  looked  like  that. 
And  when  I  saw  her  that  night  I  could  hardly  wait 
to  have  her  face  and  eyes  soften  all  to  Summer,  that 
wonderful  way  she  had. 

"  Oh,  Miss  Clementina,"  I  says,  "  I've  got  a  baby. 
At  least,  he's  only  half  mine.  I  mean  — " 

Then,  while  she  was  coming  toward  us  along  the 
lamp-light,  as  if  it  was  made  to  bring  her,  the  little 
chap  began  waking  up.  He  stirred,  and  budded  up 
his  lips,  and  said  little  baby-things  in  his  throat,  and 
begun  to  cry,  soft  and  lonesome,  as  if  he  didn't  un- 
derstand. Oh,  isn't  it  true?  A  baby's  waking-up 
minute,  when  it  cries  a  little  and  don't  know  where 
it  is,  ain't  that  like  us,  sometimes  crying  out  sort  of 
blind  to  be  took  care  of?  And  when  the  little  thing 
opened  his  eyes,  first  thing  he  saw  was  Miss  Clem- 
entina, standing  beside  him.  And  what  did  that 
little  chap  do  instead  of  stopping  crying  but  just 
hold  out  one  hand  toward  her,  and  kind  of  bend 
across,  same  as  if  he  meant  something. 

With  that  the  Brother-man,  that  Madame  Proud- 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  251 

fit  hadn't  had  a  chance  yet  to  present  to  Miss  Clem- 
entina, he  says  to  her  all  excited: 

"  He  wants  you  to  kiss  his  hand!  Kiss  his  hand 
and  he'll  stop  crying!  " 

Miss  Clementina  looked  up  at  him  like  a  little 
question,  then  she  stooped  and  kissed  the  baby's 
hand,  and  we  three  watched  him  perfectly  breath- 
less to  see  what  he  would  do.  And  he  done  exactly 
what  that  up-hill  note  had  said  he  would  —  he 
stopped  crying,  and  he  done  more  than  it  said  he 
would  —  he  smiled  sweet  and  bright,  and  as  if  he 
knew  something  else  about  it.  And  we  three  looked 
at  each  other  and  at  him,  and  we  smiled,  too.  And 
it  made  a  nice  minute. 

"  Clementina,"  said  Madame  Proudfit,  like  an- 
other minute  that  wasn't  so  very  well  acquainted 
with  the  one  that  was  being,  and  then  she  presented 
the  Brother-man.  But  instead  of  a  regular  society, 
say-what-you-ought-to-say  answer  to  her  greeting, 
the  Brother-man  says  to  her: 

"  Miss  Proudfit,  you  shall  arbitrate !  Somebody 
left  him  to  this  lady  and  me  —  or  to  anybody  like, 
or  unlike  us  —  on  the  train.  Shall  we  find  his  own 
mother  that  has  run  away  from  him?  Or  shall  we 
send  him  to  an  institution?  Or  shall  we  keep  him? 
Which  way,"  he  says,  smiling,  "  is  the  way  that  is 
the  way?  " 

She  looked  up  at  him  as  if  she  knew,  clear  inside 
his  words,  what  he  was  talking  about. 


252         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Are  you/'  she  ask'  him,  half  merry,  but  all  in 
earnest  too,  "  are  you  going  to  decide  with  your 
heart  or  your  head?  " 

"  Why,  with  my  soul,  I  hope,"  says  the  Brother- 
man,  simple. 

Miss  Clementina  nodded  a  little,  and  I  saw  her 
face  all  Summer-soft  as  she  answered  him. 

''  Then,"  she  said,  "  almost  nobody  will  tell  you 
so,  but  —  there's  only  one  way." 

"  I  know  it,"  says  he,  gentle. 

"  I  know  it,"  says  I,  solemn. 

We  three  stood  looking  at  each  other  from  close 
on  the  same  star,  knowing  all  over  us  that  if  you  de- 
cide a  thing  with  your  head  you'll  probably  shift  a 
burden  off;  if  you  decide  w'ith  your  heart  you'll 
probably  give,  give,  give,  like  Madame  Proudfit 
does,  to  pay  somebody  else  liberal  to  take  the  bur- 
den; but  if  you  decide  it  with  your  soul,  you  give 
your  own  self  to  whatever  is  going  on.  And  you 
know  that's  the  way  that  is  the  way. 

All  of  a  sudden,  as  if  words  that  were  not  being 
said  had  got  loose  and  were  saying  themselves  any- 
way, the  music  —  that  had  been  tip-tapping  along 
all  the  while  since  we  came  —  started  in,  sudden 
and  beautiful,  with  the  Piano  Lady  and  the  Violin 
Man  playing  up  there  in  the  landing  room.  I  don't 
know  whether  it  was  a  lullaby  —  though  I  shouldn't 
be  surprised  if  it  was,  because  I  think  sometimes 
in  this  world  things  happen  just  like  they  were  being 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  253 

stage-managed  by  somebody  that  knows.  But  any- 
way —  oh,  it  had  a  lullaby  sound,  a  kind-of  rocking, 
tender,  just-you-and-me  meaning;  that  ain't  so 
very  far  from  the  you-and-me-and-all-of-us  meaning 
when,  they're  both  said  right  and  deep  down. 

I  looked  up  at  Miss  Clementina  and  the  Brother- 
man  —  as  you  do  look  up  when  some  nice  little  thing 
has  happened  that  you  think  whoever  you're  with 
will  understand.  But  they  didn't  look  back  at  me, 
They  looked  over  to  each  other.  They  looked  over 
to  each  other,  swift  at  the  first,  but  lasting  long,  and 
with  the  faces  of  both  of  them  softening  to  Summer. 
And  the  music  went  heavenly-ing  on,  into  the  room, 
and  into  living,  and  into  everything,  and  it  was  as 
if  the  whole  minute  was  turned  into  its  own  spirit 
and  then  was  said  out  in  a  sound. 

Miss  Clementina  and  the  Brother-man  looked 
away  and  down  at  the  little  chap  that  Miss  Clem- 
entina was  holding  his  hand.  It  was  as  if  there 
was  a  pulse  in  the  room  —  the  Great  Pulse  that  we 
all  beat  to,  and  that  now  and  then  we  hear.  But 
those  two  didn't  see  me  at  all;  and  all  of  a  sudden 
I  understood,  how  there  was  still  another  star  that 
I  didn't  know  anything  about,  and  that  they  two 
were  standing  there  together,  they  two  and  the  little 
chap  —  but  not  me.  Oh,  it  was  wonderful  —  start- 
ing the  way  great  things  start,  still  and  quiet 
like  stars  coming  out.  So  still  that  they  didn't  either 
of  them  know  it.  And  I  felt  as  if  everything  was 


254        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

some  better  and  some  holier  than  I  had  ever  known. 

Then  Madame  Proudfit,  she  leans  out  from  her 
star,  gracious  and  benign,  and  certain  sure  that  her 
star  was  the  only  one  that  had  eternal  truth  inside 
it;  and  she  spoke  with  a  manner  of  waving  her  hand 
good  natured  to  all  the  other  little  stars,  including 
ours: 

"You  mad,  mad,  children!"  she  said.  "You 
are  mad.  But  you  are  very  picturesque  in  your  de- 
cisions, there's  no  denying  that.  He  would  prob- 
ably be  better  cared  for,  more  scientifically  fed,  and 
all  that,  in  a  good,  hired,  private  family.  But 
that's  as  you  see  it.  Be  mad,  if  you  like  —  I'm 
here  to  watch  over  you!  " 

She  had  quite  a  nice  tidy  high  point  of  view  about 
it  —  but  oh,  it  wasn't  ours.  It  wasn't  ours.  We 
three  —  the  Brother-man  and  Miss  Clementina  and 
me  —  we  sort  of  hugged  our  own  way.  And  the 
little  chap  he  kept  smiling,  like  he  sort  of  hugged  it 
too. 

So  that  was  the  way  it  was.  Miss  Clementina 
and  the  Brother-man  —  that  she'd  been  afraid  to 
meet,  'count  of  thinking  mebbe  he  didn't  mean  his 
writings  for  living  —  were  in  love  from  before  they 
knew  it.  And  I  think  it  was  part  because  they  both 
meant  life  strong  enough  for  living  and  not  just  for 
thinking,  like  the  lukewarm  folks  do. 

I  kept  the  little  chap  with  me  the  three  months 


THE  BROTHER-MAN  255 

or  so  that  went  by  before  the  wedding  —  and  I 
could  hardly  bear  to  let  him  go  then. 

"  Why  don't  you  keep  him  for  them  the  first  year 
or  so?"  Friendship  Village  ask'  me.  But  there's 
some  things  even  your  own  town  doesn't  always  un- 
derstand. "  It's  so  unromantic  for  them  to  take 
him  now,"  some  of  them  even  said. 

But  I  says  to  them  what  I  say  now:  "There's 
things  that's  bigger  than  romantic  and  there's 
things  that's  bigger  than  practical,  so  be  some  of 
both  is  mixed  in  right  proportion.  And  the  biggest 
thing  I  know  in  this  world  is  when  folks  say  over, 
'  You  and  me  and  all  of  us,'  like  voices,  speaking  to 
everybody's  Father  from  inside  the  dark." 


THE  CABLE1 

I  SAYS  to  myself:  "  What  shall  I  do?  What 
shall  I  do?" 

I  crushed  the  magazine  down  on  my  knee,  and 
sat  there  rocking  with  it  between  my  hands. 

It  was  just  a  story  about  a  little  fellow  with  a 
brick.  They  met  him,  a  little  boy  six  years  old, 
somewhere  in  Europe,  going  along  up  toward  one 
of  the  milk  stations,  at  sunrise.  They  wondered 
why  he  carried  a  brick,  and  they  asked  him :  "  Why 
do  you  have  the  brick?  "  "  You  see,"  he  says,  "  it's 
so  wet.  I  can  get  up  on  this."  And  he  stood  on 
his  brick  in  the  mud  before  the  milk  station  for  five 
hours,  waiting  for  his  supplies  that  was  a  pint  of 
milk  to  take  home  to  his  mother. 

Mebbe  it  was  queer  that  this  struck  me  all  of  a 
heap,  when  the  big  war  I'd  got  used  to.  But  you 
can't  get  used  to  the  things  that  hurt  a  child. 

And  then  I  kept  thinking  about  Bennie.  Suppos- 
ing it  had  been  Bennie,  with  the  brick?  Bennie  was 
the  little  boy  that  his  young  father  had  gone  back 
to  the  old  country,  and  Bennie  hadn't  any  mother. 
So  I  had  him. 

Because  I  had  to  do  something,  I  went  out  on  the 

1  Copyright,  1916,  Collier's  Weekly,  as  "  Over  There." 

256 


THE  CABLE  257 

porch  and  called  him.  He  came  running  from  his 
swing  —  his  coat  was  too  big  for  him  and  his  ears 
stuck  out,  but  he  was  an  awful  sweet  little  boy.  The 
kind  you  want  to  have  around. 

"  Bennie,"  I  says,  "  I  know  little  boys  hate  it. 
But  could  you  leave  me  hug  you?  " 

He  kind  of  saw  I  was  feeling  bad  —  like  a  child 
can  —  and  he  came  right  up  to  me  and  he  says : 

"  I  got  one  hug  left.     Here  it  is !  " 

And  he  hugged  me  grand. 

Then  he  ran  back  down  the  path,  throwing  his 
legs  out  sideways,  kind  of  like  a  little  calf,  the  way 
he  does.  And  I  set  down  on  the  side  stoop,  and  I 
cried. 

"  Oh,  blessed  God,"  I  says,  u  supposing  Bennie 
was  running  round  Europe  with  a  brick,  waiting  five 
hours  in  the  mud  for  milk  for  his  ma,  that  he  ain't 
got  none?  " 

When  I  feel  like  that,  I  can't  sit  still.  I  have  to 
walk.  So  I  opened  the  side  gate  and  left  Bennie 
run  through  into  Mis'  Holcomb's  yard,  that  was 
ironing  on  her  back  porch,  and  I  says  to  her  to 
please  keep  an  eye  on  him.  And  then  I  headed  down 
the  street,  towards  nothing;  and  my  heart  just  filled 
out  ready  to  blow  up. 

As  I  went,  I  heard  a  bell  strike.  It  was  a  strange 
bell,  and  I  wondered.  Then  I  remembered. 

"  The  new  Town  Hall's  new  bell,"  I  thought. 
"  It's  come  and  it's  up.  They're  trying  it." 


258        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

And  it  seemed  like  the  voice  of  the  town,  saying 
something. 

In  the  door  of  the  newspaper  office  sat  the  editor, 
Luke  Norris,  his  red  face  and  black  hair  buried  be- 
hind a  tore  newspaper. 

"  Hello,  Luke,"  I  says,  sheer  out  of  wanting  hu- 
man looks  and  words  from  somebody. 

He  laid  down  his  newspaper,  and  he  took  his 
breath  quick  and  he  says:  "I  wish't  Europe 
wasn't  so  far  off.  I'd  like  to  go  over  there  —  with 
a  basket." 

I  overtook  little  Nuzie  Cook,  going  along  home, 
—  little  thin  thing  she  was,  with  such  high  eye-brows 
that  her  face  looked  like  its  windows  were  up. 

"  Nuzie,"  I  says,  "  how's  your  ma?  "  And  that 
was  a  brighter  subject,  because  Mis'  Cook  has  only 
got  the  rheumatism  and  the  shingles. 

"  Ma's  in  bed,"  says  Nuzie.  "  She's  worried 
about  her  folks  in  the  old  country  —  she  ain't  heard 
and  she  can't  sleep." 

I  went  to  a  house  where  I  knew  there  was  a  baby, 
and  I  played  with  that.  Then  I  went  to  call  on  Mis' 
Perkins,  that  ain't  got  sense  enough  to  talk  about 
anything  that  is  anything,  so  she  kind  of  rested  me. 
But  into  Mis'  Hunter's  was  a  little  young  rabbit, 
that  her  husband  had  plowed  into  its  ma's  nest,  and 
he'd  brought  it  in  with  its  leg  cut  by  the  plow,  and 
they  was  trying  to  decide  what  best  to  do.  And  I 
begun  hurting  inside  again,  and  thinking: 


THE  CABLE  259 

"  Nothing  but  a  rabbit  —  a  baby  rabbit  —  and 
over  there.  .  .  ." 

I  didn't  say  anything.  Pretty  soon  I  turned  back 
home.  And  then  I  ran  into  the  McVicars  —  three 
of  them. 

The  McVicars  —  three  of  them  —  had  Spring 
hats  trimmed  with  cherries  and  I  guess  raisins  and 
other  edibles;  the  McVicars  —  mother  and  two  off- 
spring, sprung  quite  a  while  back  —  are  new-come 
to  the  village,  and  stylish.  They  hadn't  been  in 
town  in  two  months  when  they'd  been  invited  twice  to 
drive  to  the  cemetery  in  the  closed  carriages,  though 
they  hadn't  known  either  corpse,  personally.  They 
impressed  people. 

"Oh,  Mis'  Marsh,"  says  Mis'  McVicar,  "  we 
wanted  to  see  you.  We're  getting  up  a  relief 
fund.  .  .  ." 

I  went  down  in  my  pocket  for  a  quarter,  auto- 
matic. I  heard  their  thanks,  and  I  went  on.  And 
it  came  to  me  how,  all  over  the  country,  the  whole 
100,000,000  of  us,  more  or  less,  had  been  met  up 
with  to  contribute  something  to  relief,  and  we'd  all 
done  it.  And  it  had  gone  over  there  to  this  coun- 
try and  to  that.  But  our  hearts  had  ached,  indi- 
vidual and  silent,  the  way  mine  was  aching  that  day 
—  and  there  wasn't  any  means  of  cabling  that  ache 
over  to  Europe.  If  there  was,  if  that  great  ache 
that  was  in  all  of  us  for  the  folks  over  there,  could 
just  be  gathered  up  and  got  over  to  them  in  one 


26o         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

mass,  I  thought  it  would  do  as  much  as  food  and 
clothes  and  money  to  help  them. 

I  stood  still  by  a  picket  fence  I  happened  to  be 
passing,  and  I  looked  down  the  little  street.  It  had 
a  brick  sidewalk  and  a  dirt  road  and  little  houses, 
and  the  fences  hadn't  been  taken  down  yet.  And  all 
the  places  looked  still  and  kind  of  dear. 

"  They  all  feel  bad,"  I  thought,  "  just  as  bad  as  I 
do,  for  folks  that's  starved.  But  they  can't  say  so 
—  they  can't  say  so.  Only  in  little  dabs  of  money, 
sent  off  separate." 

Bennie  was  swinging  on  Mis'  Holcomb's  gate, 
looking  for  me.  He  came  running  to  meet  me. 

"  I  found  a  blue  beetle,"  he  says  to  me.  "  And 
that  lady's  kitty's  home,  with  a  bell  on.  And  I  got 
a  new  nail.  An  —  an  —  an — " 

And  I  thought:  "He  ain't  no  different  from 
them  —  over  there.  The  little  tikes,  with  no  pas 
and  no  suppers  and  nothing  to  play  with,  only  mebbe 
a  brick  to  lug." 

And  there  I  was,  right  back  to  where  I  started 
from.  And  I  went  out  to  get  supper,  with  my  heart 
hanging  around  my  neck  like  a  pail  of  rock. 

II 

Next  day  was  Memorial  Day.     And  Memorial 
Day  in  Friendship  Village  is  something  grand. 
First  the  G.  A.   R.  conducts  the  service  in  the 


THE  CABLE  261 

Court  House  yard,  with  benches  put  up  special,  and 
a  speech  from  out  of  town  and  paid  for. 

Right  away  afterward  everybody  marches  or 
drives,  according  to  the  state  of  their  pocket-book, 
out  to  the  Cemetery,  to  lay  flowers  on  the  soldiers' 
graves;  and  it's  quite  an  event,  because  everybody 
that's  got  anybody  buried  out  there  and  that  is  still 
alive  themselves,  they  all  whisk  out  the  day  before 
and  decorate  up  their  graves,  so's  everybody  can  see 
for  themselves  how  intimate  their  dead  is  held  in 
remembrance.  And  everybody  walks  around  to  see 
if  so-and-so  has  thought  to  send  anything  from  Seat- 
tle, or  wherenot,  this  year.  And  if  they  didn't,  it's 
something  to  tell  about. 

Then  all  the  Ladies'  Aid  Societies  serve  dinners 
in  the  empty  store  buildings  down  town,  and  make 
what  they  can.  And  in  the  afternoon  everybody 
lounges  round  and  cuts  the  grass  and  tinkers  with 
the  screens  and  buys  ice  cream  off  the  donkey-cart 
man. 

I  dressed  Bennie  up,  clean  and  miserable,  in  the 
morning,  and  went  down  to  the  exercises.  I 
couldn't  see  much,  because  the  woman  in  front  of 
me  couldn't  either,  and  she  stood  up;  and  I  couldn't 
hear  much,  because  the  paid-for  speaker  addressed 
only  one-half  of  his  audience,  and  as  usual  I  wasn't 
in  the  right  half.  But  the  point  is  that  neither  of 
them  limitations  mattered.  I  didn't  have  to  see  and 


262         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

I  didn't  have  to  hear.  All  that  I  had  to  do  was  to 
feel.  And  I  felt.  For  I  was  alive  at  the  time  of 
the  Civil  War,  and  all  you  have  to  do  to  me  is  to 
touch  that  spring  in  me,  and  I'm  back  there:  Get- 
ting the  first  news,  reading  about  Sumter,  sensing 
the  call  for  75,000  volunteers,  hearing  that  this  one 
and  this  one  and  this  one  had  enlisted,  peeking 
through  the  fence  at  Camp  Randall  where  my  two 
brothers  were  waiting  to  go ;  and  then  living  the  long 
four  years  through,  when  every  morning  meant  news, 
and  no  news  meant  news,  and  every  night  meant 
more  to  hear.  For  years  I  couldn't  open  a  news- 
paper without  feeling  I  must  look  first  for  the  list 
of  the  dead.  .  .  . 

I  set  there  on  the  bench  in  the  spring  sunshine, 
without  anything  to  lean  against,  seeing  the  back 
breadths  of  Mis'  Curtsey's  gray  flowered  delaine, 
and  living  it  all  over  again,  with  Bennie  hanging  on 
my  knee.  And  it  made  it  a  thousand  times  worse, 
now  that  these  Memorial  Days  were  passing,  with 
what  was  going  on  in  Europe  still  going  on. 

And  I  thought :  "  Oh,  I  dunno  how  we  can  keep 
up  feeling  memorial  for  just  our  own  soldiers,  when 
the  whole  world's  soldiers  are  lying  dead,  new  every 
night.  .  .  ." 

And  getting  a  little  more  used  to  the  paid  speaker's 
voice,  I  could  hear  some  of  what  he  was  saying.  I 
could  get  the  .names, —  Vicksburg,  Gettysburg, 
Shenandoah,  Missionary  Ridge,  all  these,  over  and 


THE  CABLE  263 

over.  And  my  heart  ached  with  every  one.  But 
it  had  a  new  ache,  for  names  that  the  whole  world 
will  echo  with  for  years  to  come.  And  sitting  there, 
with  nobody  knowing,  I  says  to  myself: 

"  And,  O  Lord,  I  memorial  all  the  rest  of  them  — 
the  soldiers  of  fifty  years  ago  no  more  than  the  sol- 
diers of  now  —  the  soldiers  of  Here  no  more  than 
the  soldiers  of  Over  There.  O  Lord,  I  memorial 
them  all,  and  I  pray  for  them  that  survive  over 
there  —  put  all  Your  strength  on  them,  Lord,  as 
far  as  I  am  concerned,  for  us  survivors  here,  we 
don't  need  You  as  much  as  they  do  —  them  that's 
new  bereaved  and  new  desolated.  For  Christ's 
sake.  Amen." 

On  my  way  home,  I  saw  Luke  Norris  sitting  out 
by  the  door  of  his  office  again.  He  never  went 
to  any  exercises  because  his  wind-pipe  was  liable  to 
shut  up  on  him,  and  it  broke  up  the  program  some, 
getting  his  breath  through  to  him. 

"  Calliope,"  he  says,  "  we  want  you  should  go  on 
to  the  Committee  for  opening  the  new  Town  Hall, 
in  about  two  months  from  now.  We  want  the  Jim- 
dandiest,  swell-upest  celebration  this  town  has  ever 
had.  Twenty  years  of  unexampled  prosperity — " 

I  stood  still  and  stared  down  on  him. 

"  Honest,"  I  says,  "  do  you  want  me  to  help  in  a 
prosperity  celebration  this  Summer?  " 

"  Sure,"  he  says,  "  women  are  in  on  it." 

"  Luke,"  I  says.     "  I  dunno  how  you'll  feel  about 


264         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

that  when  you  come  to  think  it  over.     But  I  feel  — " 
Bennie,  fussing  round  on  the  side-walk,  came  over, 

tugging  a  chunk  of  wood.     I  thought  at  first  he  was 

carrying  a  brick. 

I  sat  down  in  a  handy  chair,  just  inside  Luke's 

door. 

"  Luke/'  I  says,  "  Luke !     That  ain't  the  kind  of 

a  celebration  this  town  had  ought  to  have.     You 

listen  here  to  me.  .  .  ." 

Ill 

Sometimes,  when  I  can't  sleep,  I  think  about  the 
next  two  Summer  months.  I  lie  awake  and  think 
how  it  all  went,  that  planning,  from  first  to  last.  I 
think  about  the  idea,  and  about  how  it  started,  and 
kindled,  and  spread,  and  flamed.  And  I  think  about 
what  finally  came  of  it. 

For  one  thing,  it  was  the  first  living,  human  thing 
that  Friendship  Village  ever  got  up  that  there  wasn't 
a  soul  that  kicked  about.  You  can't  name  another 
thing  that  any  of  the  town  ever  went  in  for,  that 
the  rest  didn't  get  up  and  howl.  Pavement  —  some 
of  us  said  we  couldn't  afford  it,  "  not  now."  New 
bridge  —  half  of  us  says  we  was  bonded  to  the  limit 
as  it  was.  Sewerage  —  three-fourths  of  us  says  for 
our  town  it  was  a  engineering  impossibility.  Buying 
the  electric  light  plant,  that  would  be  pure  socialism. 
Central  school  building  —  a  vast  per  cent  of  us  al- 
lows it  would  make  it  too  far  for  the  children  to 


THE  CABLE  265 

walk,  though  out  of  school  hours  they  run  all  over 
the  town,  scot-free  and  foot  loose,  skate,  sled  and 
hoop.  As  a  town  none  of  us  would  unite  on  noth- 
ing. Never,  not  till  this  time. 

But  this  time  it  was  different.  And  even  if  not 
anything  had  come  of  it,  I'd  be  glad  to  remember 
the  kind  of  flash  I  got  from  different  folks,  when 
we  came  to  tell  them  about  it. 

I  went  first  to  the  Business  Men's  Association,  be- 
cause it  was  them  that  was  talking  the  Town  Hall 
celebration  the  hardest.  I'd  been  to  them  before, 
about  playgrounds,  about  band  concerts,  about  tak- 
ing care  of  the  park;  and  some  of  them  were  down  on 
us  ladies. 

*  You're  always  putting  up  propositions  to  give 
money  out,"  says  one  of  them  once.  "  Why  don't 
you  propose  us  taking  in  some  ?  What  do  you  think 
we  are?  Charity?  " 

"  No,"  says  I  to  him,  "  I  don't.  Nor  yet  love. 
You're  dollar  marks  and  ciphers,  a  few  of  you," 
I  told  him,  candid,  "  and  those  don't  make  a 
number." 

So  when  I  stood  up  before  them  that  night,  I  knew 
some  of  them  were  prepared  to  vote,  automatic, 
against  whatever  we  wanted.  Some  of  them  didn't 
even  have  to  hear  what  us  ladies  suggested  in  order 
to  be  against  it.  And  then  I  began  to  talk. 

I  told  them  the  story  of  the  little  fellow  with  the 
brick.  That  stayed  in  my  mind.  I  never  see  my 


266        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

milk-man  go  along,  leaving  big,  clean  bottles  in 
everybody's  doors  that  I  didn't  image  up  that  little 
boy  standing  in  the  mud  on  his  brick,  waiting.  And 
then  I  mentioned  Bennie  to  them  too,  that  they  all 
knew  about.  We  hadn't  heard  from  his  father  in 
two  months  now,  and  of  course  there  didn't  any  of 
us  know.  .  .  . 

"  I  don't  need  to  remind  you,"  I  says  to  them, 
"  how  we  feel  about  Europe.  Every  one  of  us 
knows.  We  try  not  to  talk  about  it,  because  there's 
some  of  it  we  can't  talk  about  without  letting  go. 
But  it's  on  us  all  the  time.  The  other  day  I  was 
trying  to  think  how  the  world  use'  to  feel,  and  how 
I'd  felt,  before  this  came  on  us.  I  couldn't  do  it. 
There  can't  any  of  us  do  it.  It's  on  us,  like  thick 
dark,  whatever  we  do.  Giving  money  don't  express 
it.  Talking  don't  express  it.  ...  Oh,  let's  do 
something  in  this  town !  Instead  of  our  new  Town 
Hall  Prosperity  celebration,  let's  us  do  something  on 
August  4  to  let  Europe  see  how  bad  we  feel.  Let's 


us." 


We  talked  a  little  more,  and  then  I  told  them  our 
plan,  and  we  talked  over  that.  I'll  never  forget 
them,  in  the  little  Town  Room  with  the  two  gas  jets 
and  the  chairman's  squeaky  swivel  chair  and  the  to- 
bacco smoke.  But  there  wasn't  one  voice  that  dis- 
sented, not  one.  They  all  sat  still,  as  if  they  were 
taking  off  some  spiritual  hats  that  didn't  show.  It 
was  as  if  their  little  idea  of  a  Prosperity  celebration 


THE  CABLE  267 

sort  of  gave  up  its  light  to  some  big  sun,  blazing 
there  on  us,  in  the  room. 

The  rest  was  easy.  It  kind  of  done  itself.  In  a 
way  it  was  already  done.  Something  was  in  peo- 
ple's hearts,  and  we  were  just  making  a  way  for  it 
to  get  out.  And  the  air  was  full  of  something  that 
was  ready  to  get  into  people's  hearts,  and  we  made 
a  way  for  it  to  get  in.  I  don't  know  but  these  are 
our  only  job  on  this  earth. 

August  4  —  that's  the  Europe  date  that  none  of 
America  can  forget,  because  it's  part  our  date  too. 

"What  we  going  to  do?"  says  Bennie,  when  I 
was  dressing  him.  It  was  four  months  since  we  had 
had  a  letter  from  his  father  .... 

'  We're  going  to  do  something,"  I  says  to  him, 
"  that  you'll  remember,  Bennie,  when  you're  an  old 
man."  And  I  gave  his  shoulders  a  little  shake. 
1  You  tell  them  about  it  when  you're  old.  Because 
they'll  understand  it  better  then  than  we  do  now. 
You  tell  them!" 

*  Yes,  ma'am,"  says  Bennie,  obedient  —  and  I 
kind  of  think  he'll  do  it. 

We  were  to  meet  in  the  Court  House  yard,  that's 
central,  and  march  to  the  Market  Square,  that's  big. 
I  was  to  march  in  the  last  detachment,  and  so  it 
came  that  I  could  watch  them  start.  And  I  could 
see  down  Daphne  Street,  with  all  the  closed  business 
houses  with  the  flags  hung  out  at  half  mast,  some 


268        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

of  them  with  a  bow  of  black  cloth  tied  on.  And  it 
was  a  strange  gathering,  for  everybody  was  think- 
ing, and  everybody  knew  everybody  else  was  think- 
ing. 

We've  got  a  nice  band  in  Friendship  Village,  that 
they  often  send  for  to  play  to  the  City.  And  when  it 
started  off  ahead,  beating  soft  with  the  Beethoven 
funeral  march,  I  held  my  breath  and  shut  my  eyes. 
They  were  playing  for  Europe,  four  thousand  miles 
away. 

Then  came  the  women.  That  seemed  the  way  to 
do,  we  thought  —  because  war  means  what  war 
means  to  women.  They  were  wearing  white  —  or 
at  least  everybody  was  that  had  a  white  dress,  but 
blue  or  green  or  brown  marched  just  the  same  as  if 
it  was  white ;  and  they  all  wore  black  streamers  — 
just  cloth,  because  we  none  of  us  had  very  much  to 
do  with.  Every  woman  in  town  marched  —  not  one 
stayed  home.  And  one  of  the  women  had  thought 
of  something. 

"  We'd  ought  not  to  carry  just  our  flag,"  she  said. 

'  That  don't  seem  real  right.     Let's  us  get  out  our 

dictionaries  and  copy  off  the  other  nations'  flags  over 

there;  and  make   'em  up  out  of  cheese-cloth,   and 

carry  'em." 

And  that  was  what  we  done.  And  all  the  women 
carried  the  different  ones,  just  as  they  happened  to 
pick  them  up,  and  at  half  mast. 

I  don't  know  as  I  know  who  came  next,  or  what 


THE  CABLE  269 

order  we  arranged  them.  We  didn't  have  many  ex- 
foreigners  living  in  Friendship  Village,  but  them  we 
had  marched,  in  their  own  groups.  They  all  came, 
dressed  in  their  best,  and  we  had  cheese-cloth  flags 
of  their  own  nation,  made  for  each  group;  and  they 
marched  carrying  them,  all  together. 

There  was  everybody  that  worked  in  the  town, 
marching  for  Labor.  Then  come  the  churches,  not 
divided  off  into  denominations,  but  just  walking,  hit 
or  miss,  as  they  came;  and  though  this  was  due  to 
a  superintendent  or  two  getting  rattled  at  the  last 
minute  and  not  falling  in  line  right,  it  seemed  good 
to  see  it,  for  the  sorrow  of  one  church  for  Europe 
isn't  any  whit  different  from  the  sorrow  of  every 
one  of  the  rest.  When  your  heart  aches,  it  aches 
without  a  creed. 

Last  came  the  children,  that  I  was  going  to  march 
with;  and  someway  they  were  kind  of  the  heart  of 
the  whole.  And  just  in  front  of  them  was  the  Moth- 
ers' Club  —  twenty  or  so  of  them,  hard-worked, 
hopeful  women,  all  wanting  life  to  be  nice  for  their 
children,  and  trying,  the  best  they  knew,  to  read  up 
about  it  at  their  meetings.  And  they  were  march- 
ing that  day  for  the  motherhood  of  the  nations,  and 
there  wasn't  one  of  them  that  didn't  feel  it  so.  And 
the  children  .  .  .  when  we  turned  the  corner  where 
I  could  look  back  on  them,  I  had  all  I  could  do  —  I 
had  all  I  could  do.  Three-four  hundred  of  them, 
bobbing  along,  carrying  any  nation's  flag  that  came 


270        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

handy.  And  they  meant  so  much  more  than  they 
knew  they  meant,  like  children  always  do. 

"  You're  going  to  march  for  the  little  boys  and 
girls  in  Europe  that  have  lost  their  folks,"  was  all 
we  said  to  them. 

And  when  I  see  them  coming  along,  looking  round 
so  sweet,  dressed  up  in  what  they  had,  and  their  hair 
combed  up  nice  by  somebody,  somehow  there  came 
over  me  the  picture  of  that  little  fellow  with  his 
brick,  waiting  there  for  that  pint  of  milk;  and  I 
squeezed  up  so  on  Bennie's  hand  that  I  was  walk- 
ing with,  that  he  looked  up  at  me. 

"  You're  lovin'  me  too  hard  in  my  fingers,"  he 
told  me,  candid. 

"  Oh,  Bennie,"  I  says,  "  you  excuse  me.  I  guess 
I  was  squeezing  the  hand  of  every  little  last  one  of 
them,  over  there." 

We  all  came  into  the  Market  Square,  in  the  after- 
noon sunshine,  with  our  little  still,  peaceful  street  — 
laying  and  listening,  and  never  knowing  it  was  like 
heaven  at  all.  Every  soul  in  town  was  there,  I 
don't  know  of  one  that  didn't  go.  Even  Luke  Nor- 
ris  was  there,  his  wind-pipe  forgot.  We  didn't  have 
much  exercises.  Just  being  there  was  exercise 
enough.  We  sung  —  no  national  airs,  and  above 
all,  not  our  own;  but  just  a  hymn  or  two  that  had  in 
it  all  we  could  find  of  sympathy  and  love.  There 
wasn't  anything  else  to  say,  only  just  those  two 
things.  Then  Dr.  June  prayed,  brief: 


THE  CABLE  271 

"  Lord  God  of  Love,  our  hearts  are  full  of  love 
this  day  for  all  those  in  Europe  who  are  bereaved. 
We  cannot  speak  about  it  very  well  —  we  cannot 
show  it  very  much.  But  Thou  art  love  to  them. 
Oh,  draw  us  near  in  spirit  to  those  sorrowing 
over  there,  even  as  Thou  are  near  to  them  all. 
Amen." 

Then  the  band  played  the  Chopin  funeral  march, 
while  we  all  stood  still.  When  it  was  done,  up  in 
the  belfry  of  the  new  Town  Hall,  the  new  bell  that 
we  were  so  proud  of  began  to  toll.  And  it  seemed 
like  the  voice  of  the  town,  saying  something.  We 
all  went  home  to  that  bell,  with  the  children  leading 
us.  And  nobody's  store  was  opened  again  that  day. 
For  the  spirit  of  the  time,  and  of  Over  There,  was 
on  the  village  like  a  garment,  and  I  suppose  none 
of  us  spoke  of  anything  else  at  supper,  or  when  the 
lamps  were  lit. 

Quite  a  little  while  after  supper  I  was  sitting  on 
my  porch  in  the  dark,  when  Luke  Norris  and  some 
of  them  came  in  my  gate. 

"  Calliope,"  said  one  of  the  women,  "  we've  been 
thinking.  Don't  it  seem  awful  pitiful  that  Europe 
can't  know  how  we  feel  here  to-day?  " 

u  I  thought  of  that,"  I  said. 

And  Luke  says :  '  Well,  we've  been  looking  up 
the  cable  charges.  And  we  thought  we  might  man- 
age it,  to  cable  something  like  this : 


272        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Friendship  Village  memorial  exercises  held  to-day  for 
Europe's  dead.     Love  and  sympathy  from  our  village." 

"  It'll  cost  a  lot,"  says  Luke.  "  The  McVicars 
want  us  to  add  the  money  to  their  relief  fund  in- 
stead. But  I  say  no!  "  he  struck  the  porch  post  with 
his  palm.  "  Leave  us  send  it,  cost  or  no  cost,  no 
matter  what." 

"  I  say  so  too,"  I  says.  "  But  tell  me :  Where'll 
you  send  it  to  ?  " 

And  Luke  says  simple : 

"  None  of  the  newspaper  dispatch  folks'll  take  it 
—  it  ain't  news  enough  for  them.  So  I'm  a-going 
to  cable  it  myself,  prepaid,  to  six  Europe  newspa- 
pers." 

Pretty  soon  they  went  away,  and  I  took  Bennie 
and  walked  down  to  the  gate.  I  thought  about  that 
message,  going  on  the  wire  to  Europe.  .  .  .  There 
wasn't  any  moon,  or  any  sound.  The  town  lay  still, 
as  if  it  was  thinking.  The  world  lay  still,  as  if  it 
was  feeling. 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME1 

NEVER,  not  if  I  live  till  after  my  dying  day,  will 
I  forget  the  evening  that  Jeffro  got  home  from  the 
War.  It  was  one  of  the  times  when  what  you 
thought  was  the  earth  under  your  feet  dissolves 
away,  and  nothing  is  left  there  but  a  little  bit  of  dirt, 
with  miles  of  space  just  on  the  under  side  of  it. 
It  was  one  of  the  times  when  what  you  thought  was 
the  sky  over  your  head  is  drawn  away  like  a  cloth, 
and  nothing  is  there  but  miles  of  space  on  the  upper 
side  of  it.  And  in  between  the  two  great  spaces 
are  us  little  humans,  creeping  'round,  wondering  what 
we're  for.  And  not  doing  one-ninth  as  much  won- 
dering as  you'd  think  we  would. 

Jeffro  was  the  little  foreign-born  peddler,  maker 
of  toys,  that  had  come  to  Friendship  Village  and 
lived  for  a  year  with  his  little  boy,  scraping  enough 
together  to  send  for  his  wife  and  baby  in  the  old 
country.  And  no  sooner  had  he  got  them  here 
than  the  Big  War  came  —  and  nothing  would  do 
but  Jeffro  must  go  back  and  fight  it  out  with  his 
country.  And  back  he  went,  though  how  he  got 
there  I  dunno,  for  the  whole  village  loaded  him  down 

1  Copyright,   1915,  The  Woman's  Home  Companion. 

273 


274        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

so  with  stuff  that  he  must  have  been  part  helpless. 
How  a  man  could  fight  with  his  arms  part  full  of 
raspberry  jam  and  hard  cookies  and  remedies  and 
apple  butter,  I'm  sure  I  don't  know.  But  the  whole 
village  tugged  stuff  there  for  days  beforehand. 
Jeffro  was  our  one  hero.  He  was  the  only  soldier 
Friendship  Village  had  —  except  old  Bud  Babcock, 
with  his  brass  buttons  and  his  limp  and  his  perfectly 
everlasting,  always-coming-on  and  never-going-off 
reminiscences.  And  so,  when  Jeffro  started  off,  the 
whole  town  turned  out  to  watch  him  go;  and  when 
I  say  that  Silas  Sykes  gave  him  a  store-suit  at  cost, 
more  no  one  could  say  about  nothing.  For  Silas 
Sykes  is  noted  —  that  is,  he  ain't  exactly  expected 
—  that  is  to  say,  —  well,  to  put  it  real  delicate,  Silas 
is  as  stingy  as  a  dog  with  one  bone.  And  a  store- 
suit  at  cost  from  him  was  similar  to  a  gold-mine 
from  anybody  else.  Or  more  —  more. 

Well,  then,  for  six  months  Jeffro  was  swallowed 
up.  We  never  heard  a  word  from  him.  His  little 
wife  went  around  white  and  thin,  and  we  got  so  we 
didn't  ask  her  if  she'd  heard  from  him,  because 
we  couldn't  stand  that  white,  hunted,  et-up  look  on 
her  face.  So  we  kept  still,  village  delicate.  And 
that's  a  special  kind  of  delicate. 

Then,  like  a  bow  from  the  blue,  or  whatever  it  is 
they  say,  the  mayor  of  the  town  got  the  word  from 
New  York  that  Jeffro  was  coming  home  with  his 
right  arm  gone,  honorably  discharged.  And  about 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME        275 

the  same  time  a  letter  from  Europe,  from  somebody 
he  knew  that  had  got  him  the  money  to  come  with, 
told  how  he'd  been  shot  in  a  sortie  and  recommended 
by  the  captain  for  promotion. 

"  A  sortie,"  says  Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes,  thought- 
ful. "  What  kind  of  a  battle  is  a  sortie,  do  you 
s'pose?" 

"  Land,"  says  Mis'  Amanda  Toplady,  "  ain't 
that  what  they  call  an  evening  musicale?  " 

When  it  heard  Jeffro  was  coming  home,  Friend- 
ship Village  rose  up  like  one  man.  We  must  give 
him  a  welcome.  This  was  part  because  he  was  a 
hero,  and  part  because  Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes 
thought  of  it  first.  And  most  of  Friendship  Village 
don't  know  what  it  thinks  about  anything  till  she 
thinks  it  for  them. 

'  We  must  welcome  him  royal," —  were  her 
words.  '*  We  must  welcome  him  royal.  Ladies, 
let's  us  plan." 

So  she  called  some  of  us  together  to  her  house 
one  afternoon  —  Mis'  Timothy  Toplady,  Mis'  Hol- 
comb-that-was-Mame  Bliss,  Abigail  Arnold,  that 
keeps  the  Home  Bakery,  Mis'  Photographer  Sturgis, 
that's  the  village  invalid,  Mis'  Fire  Chief  Merri- 
man,  that  her  husband's  dead,  but  she  keeps  his  title 
because  we  got  started  calling  her  that  and  can't 
bear  to  stop  —  and  me.  I  told  her  I  couldn't  do 
much,  being  I  was  training  two  hundred  school  chil- 
dren for  a  Sunday  night  service  that  week,  and  I 


276        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

was  pretty  busy  myself.  But  I  went.  And  when 
we  all  got  there,  Mis'  Sykes  took  out  a  piece  of 
paper  tore  from  an  account  book,  and  she  says, 
pointing  to  a  list  on  it  with  her  front  finger  that 
wore  her  cameo  ring: 

"Ladies!  I've  got  this  far,  and  it's  for  you  to 
finish.  Jeffro  will  come  in  on  the  Through,  either 
Friday  or  Saturday  night.  Now  we'll  have  the 
band  " —  that's  the  Friendship  Village  Stonehenge 
Band  of  nine  pieces  — "  and  back  of  that  Bud  Bab- 
cock,  a-carrying  the  flag.  We'll  take  the  one 
off'n  the  engine  house,  because  that  stands  so  far 
back  no  one  will  miss  it.  And  then  we'll  have  the 
Boy  Scouts,  and  the  Red  Barns's  ambulance;  and 
we'll  put  Jeffro  in  that;  and  the  boys  can  march  be- 
side of  him  to  his  home." 

"  Well-a,"  says  Mis'  Timothy  Toplady,  "  what'll 
you  have  the  ambulance  for?  " 

"  Because  we've  got  no  other  public  ve-hicle," 
says  Mis'  Sykes,  commanding,  "  without  it's  the 
hearse.  If  so,  name  what  it  is." 

And  nobody  naming  nothing,  she  went  on: 

"  Then  I  thought  we'd  have  the  G.  A.  R.,  and 
the  W.  R.  C.  from  Red  Barns  —  they'll  be  glad  to 
come  over  because  they  ain't  so  very  much  happening 
for  them  to  be  patriotic  about,  without  it's  Memo- 
rial Day.  And  then  the  D.  A.  R.  of  Friendship 
Village  and  Red  Barns  will  come  last,  each  a-carry- 
ing a  flag  in  our  hands.  Friday  is  April  i8th,  and 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME         277 

we  did  mean  to  have  a  Pink  Tea  to  celebrate  Paul 
Revere's  ride.  But  I'm  quite  sure  the  ladies'll  all 
be  willing  to  give  that  up  and  transfer  their  pa- 
triotic observation  over  to  Jeffro.  And  we'll  all 
march  down  in  a  body,  and  be  there  when  the  train 
pulls  in.  What  say,  Ladies?  " 

She  leaned  back,  with  a  little  triumphant  pucker, 
like  she'd  scraped  the  world  for  idees,  and  got  them 
all  and  defied  anybody  to  add  to  them. 

uWell-a,"  says  Mis'  Timothy  Toplady,  "and 
then  what?  " 

"Then  what?"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  irritable. 
"  Why,  be  there.  And  wave  and  cheer  and  flop 
our  flags.  And  walk  along  behind  him  to  his  house. 
And  hurrah  —  and  sing,  mebbe  —  oh,  we  must  sing, 
of  course !  "  Mis'  Sykes  cries,  thinking  of  it  for  the 
first  time,  with  her  hands  clasped. 

Mis'  Toplady  looked  troubled. 

"  Well-a,"  she  says,  "  what  would  we  sing  for?  " 

"  Sing  for!"  cried  Mis'  Sykes,  exasperated. 
"  Because  he's  got  home,  of  course." 

"  With  his  arm  shot  off.  And  his  eyes  blinded 
with  powder.  And  him  half-starved.  And  mebbe 
worse.  I  dunno,  Ladies,"  says  Mis'  Toplady, 
dreamy,  "  but  I'm  terrible  lacking.  But  I  don't  feel 
like  singing  over  Jeffro." 

Mis'  Sykes  looked  at  her  perfectly  withering. 

"  Ain't  you  no  sense  of  what'd  due  to  occasions?  " 
says  she,  regal. 


278         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Yes,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  "  I  have.  I  guess 
that's  just  what's  the  matter  of  me.  It's  the  occasion 
that  ails  me.  I  was  thinking  —  well,  Ladies,  I  was 
wondering  just  how  much  like  singing  we'd  feel  if 
we'd  seen  Jeffro's  arm  shot  off  him." 

"  But  we  didn't  see  it,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  final. 
That's  the  way  she  argues. 

"  Mebbe  I'm  all  wrong,"  says  Mis'  Toplady, 
"  but,  Ladies,  I  can't  feel  like  a  man  getting  all 
shot  up  is  an  occasion  for  jollification.  I  can't  do 
it." 

Us  ladies  all  kind  of  breathed  deep,  like  a  vent 
had  been  opened. 

"Nor-  me."  "  Nor  me."  "Nor  me."  Run 
'round  Mis'  Sykes's  setting-room,  from  one  to  one. 

I  wish't  you  could  have  seen  Mis'  Sykes.  She 
looked  like  we'd  declared  for  cannibalism  and  athe- 
ism and  traitorism,  all  rolled  into  one. 

"  Ain't  you  ladies,"  she  says,  "  no  sense  of  the 
glories  of  war?  Or  what?  " 

"  Or  what,"  says  Mis'  Toplady.  "  That's  just 
it  —  glories  of  what.  I  guess  it's  the  what  part 
that  I  sense  the  strongest,  somehow." 

Mis'  Sykes  laid  down  her  paper,  and  crossed  her 
hands  —  with  the  cameo  ring  under,  and  then  re- 
membered and  crossed  it  over  — ^  and  she  says : 

"  Ladies,  facts  is  facts.  You've  got  to  take 
things  as  they  are." 

Abigail  Arnold  flashed  in. 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME         279 

"  But  you  ain't  takin'  'em  nowheres,"  she  says. 
"  You're  leavin'  'em  as  they  are.  War  is  the  way 
it's  been  for  five  thousand  years  —  only  five  thou- 
sand times  worse." 

Mis'  Sykes  tapped  her  foot,  and  made  her  lips 
both  thin  and  straight. 

"  Yes,"  she  says,  "  and  it  always  will  be.  As 
long  as  the  world  lasts,  there'll  be  war." 

Then  I  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer.  I  looked 
her  right  square  in  the  face,  and  I  says : 

"  Mis'  Sykes.     Do  you  believe  that?  " 

"  Certainly  I  believe  it,"  she  says.  "  Besides, 
there's  nothing  in  the  Bible  against  war.  Not  a 
thing." 

"  What  about  '  Thou  shalt  not  kill'?  "  says  I. 

She  froze  me  —  she  fair  froze  me. 

"  That,"  she  said,  "  is  an  entirely  different 
matter." 

"  Well,"  says  I,  "  if  you'll  excuse  me  for  saying 
so,  it  ain't  different.  But  leave  that  go.  What 
about  *  Love  thy  neighbor '  ?  What  about  the 
brotherhood  of  man?  What  about — " 

She  sighed,  real  patient.  "  Your  mind  works  so 
queer  sometimes,  Calliope,"  she  says. 

"  Yes,  well,  mebbe,"  I  says,  like  I'd  said  to  her 
before.  "  But  anyhow,  it  works.  .  It  don't  just  set 
and  set  and  set,  and  never  hatch  nothing.  This 
whole  earth  has  set  on  war  since  the  beginning,  and 
hatched  nothing  but  death.  Do  you  think,  honest, 


280        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

that  we  haven't  no  more  invention  to  us  than  to  keep 
on  a-bungling  like  this  to  the  end  of  time?  " 

Mis'  Sykes  stomped  her  foot. 

u  Look-a-here,"  she  says.  "  Do  you  want  to 
arrange  something  to  go  down  to  welcome  Jeffro 
home,  or  don't  you?  If  you  don't,  say  so." 

Mis'  Toplady  sighed. 

"  Let's  us  go  down  to  meet  him,"  she  says. 
"  Leave  us  do  that.  But  don't  you  expect  no  sing- 
ing off  me,"  says  she,  final.  "  That's  all." 

So  Mis'  Sykes,  she  went  ahead  with  her  plan,  and 
she  agreed,  grudging,  to  omit  out  the  singing.  And 
the  D.  A.  R's.  put  off  their  Paul  Revere  Tea,  and  we 
sent  to  the  City  for  more  flags.  Me,  though,  I 
didn't  take  a  real  part.  I  agreed  to  march,  and  then 
I  didn't  take  a  real  part.  I'd  took  on  a  good  deal 
more  than  I'd  meant  to  in  training  the  children  for 
the  Sunday  night  thing,  and  so  I  shirked  Mis'  Sykes's 
party  all  I  could.  Not  that  I  wouldn't  be  glad  to 
see  Jeffro.  But  I  couldn't  enthuse  the  way  she 
meant.  By  Friday,  Mis'  Sykes  had  everything 
pretty  ship-shape,  and  being  we  still  didn't  know 
which  day  Jeffro  would  come,  we  were  all  to  go  down 
to  the  depot  that  night,  on  the  chance ;  and  Saturday 
as  well. 

Friday  afternoon  I  was  working  away  on  some 
stuff  for  the  children,  when  Jeffro's  wife  came  in. 
The  poor  little  thing  was  so  nervous  she  didn't  know 
whether  she  was  saying  "  yes  "  or  "  no."  She'd 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME         281 

got  herself  all  ready,  in  a  new-ironed  calico,  and  a 
red  bow  at  her  neck. 

"  Do  you  think  this  bow  looks  too  gay?  "  she 
says.  "  It  seems  gay,  and  him  so  sick.  But  he  al- 
ways liked  me  to  wear  red,  and  it's  all  the  red  I've 
got.  It's  only  cotton  ribbin,  too,"  says  she,  wistful. 

She  wanted  to  know  what  I  was  doing,  and  so's  to 
keep  her  mind  off  herself,  I  told  her.  The  hundred 
children,  from  all  kinds  and  denominations  and  ev- 
erythings,  were  to  meet  together  in  Shepherd's 
Grove  that  Sunday  night,  and  I'd  fixed  up  a  little 
exercise  for  them:  One  bunch  of  them  were  to  rep- 
resent Science,  and  they  were  to  carry  little  models 
of  boats  and  engines  and  dirigibles  and  a  little  wire- 
less tower.  And  one  bunch  was  to  represent  Art, 
and  they  were  to  carry  colors  and  figures  and  big 
lovely  cardboard  designs  they  made  in  school.  And 
one  bunch  was  to  represent  Friendship,  and  they 
were  to  come  with  garlands  and  arches  that  con- 
nected them  each  with  all  the  rest.  And  one  was  to 
represent  Plenty,  with  fruit  and  grain.  And  one 
Beauty,  and  one  Understanding  —  and  so  on.  And 
then,  in  the  midst  of  them,  I  was  going  to  have  a  lit- 
tle bit  of  a  child  walk,  carrying  a  model  of  the 
globe  in  his  hands.  And  they  were  all  going  to 
come  to  him,  one  after  another,  and  they  were  going 
to  give  him  what  they  had.  And  what  we'd 
planned,  with  music  and  singing  and  a  trumpeter 
and  everything,  was  to  be  all  around  that. 


282        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  I  haven't  the  right  child  yet  to  carry  the  globe 
though,"  I  says  to  Jeffro's  wife;  "  I  can't  find  one 
little  enough  that's  strong  enough  to  lug  the  thing." 

And  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  I  remembered  her  little 
boy,  and  Jeffro's  little  boy.  I  remembered  Joseph. 
Awful  little  he  was,  but  with  sturdy  legs  and  arms, 
and  the  kind  of  a  face  that  makes  you  wonder 
why  all  little  folks  don't  look  the  same  way.  It 
seems  the  only  way  for  them  to  look. 

"  Why,"  I  says,  "  look  here:  Why  can't  I  bor- 
row Joseph  for  Sunday  night,  to  carry  the  globe?  " 

4  You  can,"  she  says,  "  without  his  father  won't 
be  wanting  him  to  leave  him,  when  he's  just  got 
home  so.  Mebbe,  though,"  she  says,  "  he's  so  sick 
he  won't  know  whether  Joseph  is  there  or  not  — " 

She  kind  of  petered  off,  like  she  didn't  have 
strength  in  her  to  finish  with.  She  never  cried 
though.  That  was  one  thing  I  noticed  about  her. 
She  acted  like  crying  is  one  of  the  things  we  ought 
to  have  outgrown  —  like  dressing  in  black  for 
mourning,  and  like  beating  a  drum  on  the  streets  to 
celebrate  anything,  and  like  war.  Honest,  the  way 
we  keep  on  using  old-fashioned  styles  like  these 
makes  me  feel  sorry  for  the  Way-Things-Were- 
Meant-To-Be. 

So  it  was  arranged  that  Joseph  was  to  carry  the 
globe.  And  Jeffro's  wife  went  home  to  wash  out 
his  collar  so  he  could  go  at  all.  And  I  flew  round 
so's  to  be  all  ready  by  six  o'clock,  when  we  were  to 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME         283 

meet  at  Court  House  Park  and  march  to  the  depot 
to  meet  Jeffro  —  so  be  he  come  that  night. 

You  know  that  nice,  long,  slanting,  yellow  after- 
noon light  that  begins  to  be  left  over  at  six  o'clock, 
in  April?  When  we  came  along  toward  Court 
House  Park  that  night,  it  looked  like  that.  There 
was  a  new  fresh  green  on  the  grass,  and  the  birds 
were  doing  business  some,  and  there  was  a  little 
nice  spring  smell  in  the  air,  that  sort  of  said  "  Come 
on."  You  know  the  kind  of  evening? 

We  straggled  up  to  the  depot,  not  in  regular 
marching  order  at  all,  but  just  bunched,  friendly. 
Mis'  Sykes  was  walking  at  the  head  of  her  D.  A.  R. 
detachment,  and  she  had  sewed  red  and  blue  to  her 
white  duck  skirt,  and  she  had  a  red  and  blue  flower 
in  her  hat,  and  her  waist  was  just  redded  and  blued, 
from  shoulder  to  shoulder,  with  badges  and  bows. 
Mis'  Sykes  was  awful  patriotic  as  to  colors,  but  I 
didn't  blame  her.  She'd  worn  mourning  so  much, 
her  only  chance  to  wear  the  becoming  shades  at  all 
was  by  putting  on  her  country's  colors.  Honest,  I 
don't  s'pose  she  thought  of  that,  though  —  well,  I 
mean  —  I  don't  s'pose  she  really  thought  —  well, 
let's  us  go  ahead  with  what  I  was  trying  to  tell. 

While  we  were  waiting  at  the  depot,  all  disposed 
around  graceful  on  trucks  and  trunks,  the  Friendship 
Village  Stonehenge  band  started  in  playing,  just 
to  get  its  hand  in.  And  it  played  "  The  Star 
Spangled  Banner."  And  as  soon  as  ever  it  started 


284        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

in,  up  hopped  Silas  Sykes  onto  his  feet,  so  sudden 
it  must  have  snapped  his  neck.  Mis'  Amanda  Top- 
lady,  that  was  sitting  by  me  on  the  telegraph  win- 
dow sill,  she  looked  at  him  a  minute  without  moving. 
And  then  she  says  to  me,  low : 

'  Whenever  a  man  gets  up  so  awful  sudden  when 
one  of  his  country's  airs  is  played,  I  always  think," 
she  says,  "  I'd  just  love  to  look  into  his  business 
life,  and  make  perfectly  sure  that  he  ain't  a-making 
his  money  in  ways  that  ain't  patriotic  to  his  country, 
nor  a  credit  to  his  citizenship  —  in  the  real  sense." 

"  Me,  too,"  I  says,  fervent. 

And  then  we  both  got  to  our  feet  deliberate,  Silas 
having  glared  at  us  and  all  but  beckoned  to  us  with 
his  neck.  He  was  singing  the  song,  too  —  negli- 
gent, in  his  throat.  And  while  he  did  so,  I  knew 
Mis'  Toplady  and  I  were  both  thinking  how  Silas, 
a  while  ago,  had  done  the  town  out  of  twice  the 
worth  of  the  property  we'd  bought  from  him,  for  a 
Humane  Society  home.  And  that  we'd  be  paying 
him  for  ten  years  to  come.  I  couldn't  help  thinking 
of  it.  I'm  thinking  of  it  now. 

Before  they  were  done  playing  the  piece,  the  train 
whistled.  We  lined  up,  or  banked  up,  or  whatever 
you  want  to  call  it.  And  there  we  stood  when  the 
train  slowed  and  stopped.  And  not  a  soul  got  off. 

No;  Jeffro  wasn't  on  that  train.  He  didn't  come 
that  night  at  all.  And  when  the  next  night  we  all 
got  down  there  to  meet  the  Through  again,  in  the 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME         285 

same  grand  style,  the  identical  same  thing  happened. 
He  didn't  come  that  night,  either.  And  we  trailed 
back  from  the  train,  with  our  spirits  dampened  a 
little.  Because  now  he  couldn't  come  till  Monday 
night,  being  the  Through  only  run  to  the  city  on 
Sundays  and  didn't  come  out  to  Friendship  Village 
at  all. 

So  I  had  that  evening  to  put  my  mind  on  the  chil- 
dren, and  finish  up  what  I  had  to  do  for  them.  And 
I  was  glad.  Because  the  service  that  I  was  planning 
for  that  night  grew  on  me.  It  was  a  Spring  festival, 
a  religious  festival  —  because  I  always  think  that 
the  coming  of  Spring  is  a  religious  ceremony,  really 
—  in  the  best  sense.  It's  when  the  new  birth  begins 
to  come  all  over  the  earth  at  once,  gentle,  as  if 
somebody  was  thinking  it  out,  a  little  at  a  time.  And 
as  if  it  was  hoping  and  longing  for  us  to  have  a  new 
life,  too. 

And  yet  I  was  surprised  that  they'd  leave  me  have 
the  festival  on  Sunday.  We've  got  so  used  to  think- 
ing of  religion  —  and  one  or  two  brands  of  patriot- 
ism —  as  the  only  holy  things  there  are.  I  didn't 
know  but  when  I  mentioned  having  Science  and  Art 
and  Friendship  and  Beauty  and  Plenty  and  Under- 
standing and  Peace  at  my  Sunday  evening  service, 
they  might  think  I  was  over-stepping  some.  I  don't 
know  but  they  did,  too.  Only  they  indulged  me  a 
little. 

So  everybody  came.     The  churches  had  all  agreed 


286        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

to  unite,  being  everybody's  children  were  in  the  fes- 
tival. And  by  five  o'clock  that  Sunday  afternoon 
the  whole  of  Shepherd's  Grove  was  full  of  Friend- 
ship Village  folks,  come  from  all  over  the  town  and 
out  on  the  edges,  and  in  the  country,  to  see  the  chil- 
dren have  their  vesper  festival.  That's  what  I'd 
called  it  —  a  vesper  festival,  so  it'd  help  them  that 
had  their  doubts. 

There  weren't  any  seats,  for  it  wasn't  going  to  be 
long,  and  I  had  them  all  stand  in  a  pleasant  green 
spot  in  the  grove,  on  two  sides  of  the  little  grass- 
grown  road  that  wound  through  the  wood,  and  down 
which,  pretty  soon,  I  was  going  to  have  Joseph  come, 
carrying  the  globe  of  the  world. 

When  we  were  ready,  and  the  little  trumpeter 
we'd  got  had  stilled  them  all  with  the  notes  he'd 
made,  that  were  like  somebody  saying  something 
and  really  meaning  it  —  the  way  a  trumpet  does 
—  then  the  children  began  to  sing,  soft  and  all  to- 
gether, from  behind  a  thicket  of  green  that  they'd 
made  themselves: 

"  Don't  you  wish  we  had  a  place 

Where  only  bright  things  are, 
Like  the  things  we  dream  about, 
And  like  a  star? 

"  Don't  you  wish  the  world  would  turn 

For  an  hour  or  two, 
And  run  back  the  other  way 
And  be  made  new? 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME         287 

"  Don't  you  wish  we  all  could  be 

What  we  know  we  are, 
'Way  inside,  where  a  Voice  speaks, 
Far  —  and  near  —  and  far?" 

And  then  they  came  out  —  one  after  another  of 
the  groups  I've  told  you  about  —  Science,  and  Art, 
and  Friendship,  and  Plenty,  and  the  others.  And 
each  one  said  what  they  knew  how  to  do  to  the 
world  to  make  that  wish  come  true.  I  don't  need 
to  tell  you  about  that.  You  know.  If  you  have 
friendship  or  plenty  or  beauty  in  your  life,  you 
know.  If  only  we  could  get  enough  of  them! 

Out  they  all  came,  one  after  another.  It  was 
very  still  in  the  wood.  The  children's  voices  were 
sweet  and  clear.  They  all  had  somebody  there  that 
they  were  near  and  dear  to.  The  whole  time  was 
quiet,  and  close  up  to,  and  like  the  way  things  were 
meant  to  be.  And  like  the  way  things  might  be. 
And  like  the  way  things  will  be  —  when  we  let 
them. 

Then  there  was  a  little  pause.  For  they'd  all 
told  what  might  be,  and  now  it  was  time  to  signal 
Joseph  to  come  running  up  the  road,  carrying  the 
globe  in  its  orbit,  and  speaking  for  the  World,  and 
asking  all  these  lovely  things  to  come  and  take  pos- 
session of  it,  and  own  it,  and  be  it.  But,  just  as  I 
got  ready  to  motion  to  him,0I  had  to  wait,  for  down 
the  grassy  road  through  Shepherd's  Grove,  where 
there  wasn't  much  travel,  was  coming  an  automo- 


288        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

bile,  though  one  doesn't  pass  that  way  from  the  city 
once  in  ten  years. 

We  all  drew  back  to  let  it  pass  among  us.  And, 
in  that  little  pause,  we  looked,  curious,  to  see  who 
was  in  it.  And  then  a  whisper,  and  then  a  cry, 
came  from  the  nearest,  and  from  them  back,  and 
then  from  them  all  at  once.  For,  propped  up  on 
the  seat,  was  Jeffro.  He'd  come  to  the  city  on  the 
Through,  that  doesn't  come  to  Friendship  Village 
Sundays,  and  they'd  brought  him  home  this  way. 

I  dunno  how  I  thought  of  it  —  don't  it  seem  as 
if  something  in  you  works  along  alone,  if  only  you'll 
keep  your  thinking  still  ?  It  did  that  now.  Almost 
before  I  knew  I  was  going  to  do  it,  I  signed  to  the 
man  to  stop,  and  I  stepped  right  up  beside  the  car 
where  Jeffro  sat,  looking  like  a  ghost  of  a  man. 
And  I  says: 

"  Mr.  Jeffro !  Mr.  Jeffro !  Are  you  too  sick  to 
leave  us  welcome  you  home?  " 

He  smiled  then,  and  put  out  his  hand  —  the  one 
hand  that  he'd  come  back  with.  And  from  some- 
where in  the  crowd,  Jeffro's  wife  got  to  the  car,  and 
got  the  door  open,  and  leaned  there  beside  him. 
And  we  all  waited  a  minute  —  but  one  minute  was 
the  very  best  we  could  do.  Then  everybody  came 
pressing  up  round  the  car  to  shake  his  hand.  And 
I  slipped  back  to  the  bugler  we  had,  and  I  says: 

"  Blow !  Blow  the  loudest  you  ever  blew  in  your 
life.  Blow! " 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME         289 

He  blew  a  blast,  silver  clear,  golden  clear,  sun- 
light clear.  And  I  sent  him  through  the  crowd, 
blowing,  and  making  a  path  right  up  to  the  auto- 
mobile. Then  I  signed  to  the  children,  and  I  had 
them  come  down  that  open  aisle.  And  they  came 
singing,  all  together,  the  song  they  had  sung  behind 
the  thicket.  And  they  pressed  close  around  the  car, 
singing  still : 

"  Don't  you  wish  we  had  a  place 

Where  only  bright  things  are, 
Like  the  things  we  dream  about, 
And  like  a  star?" 

And  there  they  came  to  meet  him  —  Art  and 
Science  and  Plenty  and  Beauty  and  Friendship  — 
Friendship.  I  don't  know  whether  he  understood 
what  they  said.  I  don't  know  whether  he  under- 
stood the  meaning  of  what  they  carried  —  for  Jeffro 
wasn't  quite  sure  of  our  language  all  the  time.  But, 
oh,  he  couldn't  misunderstand  the  spirit  of  that  time 
or  of  those  folks. 

He  got  to  his  feet,  Jeffro  did,  his  face  kind  of 
still  and  solemn.  And  just  then  Mis'  Silas  Sykes,  in 
a  black  dress,  without  a  scrap  of  red  or  blue  about 
her,  stepped  up  to  him,  her  face  fair  grief-struck. 
And  she  says: 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Jeffro.  The  D.  A.  R.,  and  the  G.  A. 
R.,  and  the  W.  R.  C.  was  to  welcome  you  back  from 
the  glories  of  war  And  here  you've  took  us  unbe- 
knownst." 


290        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

He  looked  round  at  us  —  and  this  is  what  I'll 
never  forget  —  not  if  I  live  till  my  dying  day : 

"  The  glories  of  war!"  he  says  over.  "The 
glories  of  war!  You  do  not  know  what  you  say! 
I  tell  you  that  I  have  seen  mad  dogs,  mad  beasts  of 
prey  —  but  I  do  not  know  what  it  is  they  do.  The 
glories  of  war!  Oh,  my  God,  does  nobody  know 
that  we  are  all  mad  together?  " 

Jeffro's  wife  tried  to  quiet  him,  but  he  shook  her 
off. 

"  Listen,"  he  said.  "  I  have  gone  to  war  and 
lived  through  hell  to  learn  one  thing.  I  gif  it  to 
you :  Life  is  something  else  than  what  we  think  it 
is.  That  is  true.  Life  is  something  else  than  what 
we  think  it  is.  When  we  find  it  out,  we  shall  stop  this 
devil's  madness." 

Just  then  a  little  cry  came  from  somewhere  over 
back  in  the  road. 

"  My  papa  !  It  is  my  papa  !  "  it  said.  And  there 
came  running  Joseph,  that  had  heard  his  father's 
voice,  and  that  we  had  forgot'  all  about.  We  let 
him  through  the  crowd,  and  he  climbed  up  in  the  car, 
and  his  father  took  him  in  his  one  arm.  And  there 
they  sat,  with  the  globe  that  Joseph  carried,  the 
world  that  he  carried,  in  beside  them. 

We  all  began  moving  back  to  the  village,  before 
much  of  anybody  knew  it  —  the  automobile  with 
Jeffro  in  it,  and  Jeffro's  wife,  and  Jeffro's  little  boy. 
And  with  the  car  went,  not  soldiers,  not  flags,  not 


WHEN  THE  HERO  CAME  HOME         291 

the  singing  of  any  one  nation's  airs  —  but  the  chil- 
dren, with  those  symbols  of  the  life  that  is  living 
and  building  life  —  as  fast  as  we'll  let  it  build. 
Jeffro  didn't  know  what  they  were,  I  guess  —  though 
he  knew  the  love  and  the  kindliness  and  the  peace  of 
the  time.  But  I  knew,  and  more  of  us  knew,  that 
in  that  hour  lay  all  the  promise  of  the  new  day, 
when  we  understand  what  we  are :  Gods,  fallen  into 
a  pit. 

We  went  up  the  street  with  the  children  singing: 

"  Don't  you  wish  we  all  could  be 

What  we  know  we  are, 
'Way  inside,  where  a  Voice  speaks, 
Far  —  and  near  —  and  far  ?  " 

When  we  got  to  Jeffro's  gate,  Mis'  Sykes  came 
past  me. 

"  Ain't  it  sad?  "  she  says.  "  Not  a  soldier,  nor 
a  patriotic  song,  nor  a  flag  to  meet  our  hero?  " 

I  looked  at  her,  kind.  I  felt  kind  to  all  the  world, 
because  somehow  I  felt  so  sure,  so  certain  sure,  of 
things. 

"  Don't  you  worry,  Mis'  Sykes,"  I  says.  "  I  kind 
of  feel  as  if  more  was  here  to  meet  Jeffro  than  we've 
any  notion  of." 

For  it  was  one  of  the  times  when  what  you  thought 
was  the  earth  under  your  feet  dissolves  away,  and 
nothing  is  left  there  but  a  little  bit  of  dirt,  with 
miles  of  space  just  on  the  under  side  of  it.  It  was 
one  of  the  times  when  what  you  thought  was  the 


292        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

sky  over  your  head  is  drawn  away  like  a  cloth,  and 
nothing  is  there  but  miles  of  space  high  on  the 
upper  side  of  it.  And  in  between  these  two  great 
spaces  are  us  little  humans,  kind  of  creeping  round 
—  wondering  what  we're  for. 


" FOLKS " * 

I  DUNNO  whether  you  like  to  go  to  a  big  meet- 
ing or  not?  Some  folks  seem  to  dread  them. 
Well,  I  love  them.  Folks  never  seem  to  be  so 
much  folks  as  when  I'm  with  them,  thousands  at  a 
time. 

Well,  once  annually  I  go  to  what's  a  big  meeting 
for  us,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Friendship  Village 
Married  Ladies'  Cemetery  Improvement  Sodality's 
yearly  meeting.  ...  I  always  hope  folks  won't  let 
that  name  of  us  bother  them.  We  don't  confine  our 
attention  to  Cemetery  any  more.  But  that's  been 
the  name  of  us  for  twenty-four  years,  and  we  got 
started  calling  it  that  and  we  can't  bear  to  stop. 
You  know  how  it  is  —  be  it  institutions  or  constitu- 
tions or  ideas  or  a  way  to  mix  the  bread,  one  of  our 
deformities  is  that  we  hate  to  change. 

"  Seems  to  me,"  says  Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes  once, 
"  if  we  should  give  up  that  name,  we  shouldn't  be 
loyal  nor  decent  nor  loving  to  the  dead.'7 

"  Shucks,"  says  I,  "  how  about  being  loyal  and 
decent  and  loving  to  the  living?  " 

"  Your  mind  works  so  queer  sometimes,  Calliope," 
says  Mis'  Sykes,  patient. 

l  Copyright,   1914,  La  Follette's  Magazine. 

293 


294        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

"  Yes  —  well,"  I  says,  u  mebbe.  But  anyhow,  it 
works.  It  don't  just  set  and  set  and  set,  and  never 
hatch  nothing." 

So  we  continued  to  take  down  bill-boards  and  put 
in  shrubbery  and  chase  flies  and  dream  beautiful, 
far-off  dreams  of  sometime  getting  in  sewerage,  all 
under  the  same  undying  name. 

Well,  at  our  annual  meeting  that  night,  we  were 
discussing  what  should  be  our  work  the  next  year. 
And  suggestions  came  in  real  sluggish,  being  the 
thermometer  had  been  trying  all  day  to  climb  over 
the  top  of  its  hook. 

Suggestions  run  about  like  this: 

/.  See  about  having  seats  put  in  the  County  House 
Yard. 

2.  See  about  getting  the  blankets  in  the  Calaboose 
washed  oftener. 

3.  Get  trash  baskets  for  the  streets. 

4.  Plant  vines  over  the  telegraph  poles. 

5.  See  about  Main  Street  billboards  — again. 

6.  See  about  the  laundry  soft  coal  smoke  —  again. 

7.  See  about  window  boxes   for  the   library  — 
again. 

And  these  things  were  partitioned  out  to  com- 
mittees one  by  one,  some  to  strike  dry,  shallow  sand, 
some  to  get  planted  on  the  bare  rock,  and  some  to 
hit  black  dirt  and  a  sunny  spot  with  a  watering  can, 


"  FOLKS  "  295 

or  even  a  garden  hose  handy.  You  know  them  dif- 
ferent sorts  of  soil  under  committees? 

Then  up  got  Mis'  Timothy  Toplady  —  that  dear, 
abundant  woman.  And  we  kind  of  rustled  expec- 
tant, because  Mis'  Toplady  is  one  of  the  women 
that  looks  across  the  edges  of  what's  happening  at 
the  minute,  and  senses  what's  way  over  there  be- 
yond. She's  one  of  the  women  that  never  shells 
peas  without  seeing  beyond  the  rim  of  her  pan. 

And  that  night  she  says  to  Sodality: 

"  Ladies,  I  hear  that  up  to  the  City  next  week 
there's  going  to  be  some  kind  of  a  woman's  con- 
vention." 

Nobody  said  anything.  Railroad  wrecks,  vol- 
canoes, diamonds,  conventions  and  such  never 
seemed  real  real  to  us  in  the  village. 

"  It  seems  to  be  some  kind  of  a  once-in-two-years 
affair,"  Mis'  Toplady  went  on,  "  and  I  read  in  the 
paper  how  it  had  a  million  members,  and  how  they 
came  10,000  to  a  time  to  their  meetings.  Well, 
now,"  she  ends  up,  serene,  "  I've  rose  to  propose 
that,  bein'  it's  so  near,  Sodality  send  a  delegate  up 
there  next  week  to  get  us  some  points." 

"  What  points  do  we  need,  I  should  like  to  know," 
says  Mis'  Postmaster  Sykes,  majestic.  "  Ain't  we 
abreast  of  whatever  there  is  to  be  abreast  of?  " 

"That's  what  I  dunno,"  says  Mis'  Toplady. 
"  Leave  us  find  out." 

"  Well,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  u  my  part,  expositions 


296        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

and  conventions  are  horrible  to  me.     I'm  no  club 
woman,  anyhow/'  says  she,  righteous. 

All  the  keeping  still  I  ever  done  in  my  life  when 
I'd  ought  to  wouldn't  put  nobody  to  sleep.  I  spoke 
right  up. 

"  Ain't  our  Sodality  a  club,  Mis'  Sykes?  "  I  says. 

"  Oh,  our  little  private  club  here,"  says  Mis'  Sykes, 
"  is  one  thing  —  carried  on  quiet  and  womanly 
among  ourselves.  But  a  great  big  public  conven- 
tion is  no  place  for  a  woman  that  respects  her 
home." 

"  Why,"  I  says,  "  Mis'  Sykes,  that  was  the  way 
we  were  arguing  when  clubs  began.  It  took  quite 
a  while  to  outgrow  it.  But  ain't  we.  past  all  that 
by  now?  " 

'  Women's  homes,"  she  says,  "  and  women's  little 
home  clubs  are  enough  to  occupy  any  woman.  A 
convention  is  men's  business." 

"  It  is  if  it  is,"  says  I,  "  but  think  how  often  it  is 
that  it  ain't." 

Mis'  Toplady  kept  on,  thoughtful. 

"  Anyway,  I  been  thinking,"  she  says,  "  why  don't 
we  leave  the  men  join  Sodality?  " 

I  dunno  if  you've  ever  suggested  a  revolution? 
Whether  I'm  in  favor  of  any  particular  revolution 
or  not,  it  always  makes  a  nice,  healthy  minute. 
And  it's  such  an  elegant  measuring  rod  for  the  brains 
of  folks. 

"  Why,  how  can  we  ?  "  says  Mis'  Sykes.     "  We're 


"  FOLKS  "  297 

the  Married  Ladies'  Cemetery  Improvement  So- 
dality." 

"  Is  that  name,"  says  Mis'  Toplady,  mild,  "  made 
up  out  o'  cast-iron,  Mis'  Sykes?  " 

"  But  our  constitution  says  we  shall  consist  of 
fifty  married  ladies,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  final. 

"  Did  we  make  that  constitution,"  says  I,  "  or  did 
it  make  us?  Are  we  a-idol-worshiping  our  consti- 
tution or  are  we  a-growing  inside  it,  and  bursting 
out  occasional?  " 

"  If  you  lived  in  back  a  ways,  Calliope," —  Mis' 
Sykes  begun. 

"  Well,"  says  I,  "  I  might  as  well,  if  you're  going 
to  use  any  rule  or  any  law  for  a  ball  and  chain  for 
the  leg  instead  of  a  stepping-stone  for  the  feet." 

Mis'  Fire  Chief  Merriman  looked  up  from  her 
buttonholing. 

"  But  we  don't  want  to  do  men's  work,  do  we?  " 
says  she,  distasteful.  "  Leave  them  do  their  club 
work  and  leave  us  do  our  club  work,  like  the  Lord 
meant." 

'  Well  —  us  women  tended  Cemetery  quite  a 
while,"  says  I,  "  and  the  death  rate  wasn't  confined 
to  women,  exclusive.  Graves,"  says  I,  "  is  both 
genders,  Mis'  Fire  Chief." 

Mis'  State  Senator  Pettigrew,  she  chimed  in. 

"  So  was  the  park.  So  was  paving  Main  Street. 
So  was  getting  pure  milk.  So  was  cleaning  up  the 
slaughter  house  —  parse  them  and  they're  both  gen- 


298         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

ders,  all  of  them.  Of  course  let's  us  take  men  into 
the  Sodality,"  says  she. 

Mis'  Sykes  put  her  hand  over  her  eyes. 

"  My  g-g-grandmother  organized  and  named  So- 
dality," she  said.  "  I  can't  bear  to  see  a  change." 

"  Cheer  up,  Mis'  Sykes,"  I  says,  "  you'll  be  a 
grandmother  yourself  some  day.  Can't  you  do  a 
little  something  to  let  your  grandchildren  point  back 
to?  Awful  selfish,"  I  says,  "not  to  give  them 
something  to  brag  about." 

We  didn't  press  the  men  proposition  any  more. 
We  see  it  was  too  delicate.  But  bye  and  bye  we 
talked  it  out,  that  we'd  have  a  big  meeting  of  every- 
body, men  and  women,  and  discuss  over  what  the 
town  needed,  and  what  the  Sodality  ought  to  under- 
take. 

"  That'll  be  real  democratic,"  says  Mis'  Sykes,  con- 
tented. "  We'll  give  everybody  a  chance  to  ex- 
press their  opinion  —  and  then  afterwards  we  can 
take  up  just  what  we  please." 

And  we  decided  that  was  another  reason  for 
sending  a  delegate  to  the  woman's  convention,  to 
get  ahold  of  somebody,  somehow,  to  come  down  to 
Friendship  Village  and  talk  to  us. 

"  Be  kind  of  nice  to  show  off  to  somebody,  too," 
says  Mis'  Fire  Chief  Merriman,  complacent,  "  what 
a  nice,  neat,  up-to-date  little  town  we've  got." 

"  Without  the  help  of  no  great  big  clumsy  con- 
vention either,"  Mis'  Sykes  stuck  in. 


"  FOLKS  "  299 

Then  the  first  thing  I  heard  was  Mis'  Amanda 
Toplady  up  onto  her  feet  nominating  me  to  go  for 
a  delegate  to  that  convention,  fare  paid  out  of  the 
Cemetery  Improvement  Treasury. 

Guess  what  the  first  thought  was  that  came  to  my 
head?  Oh,  ain't  it  like  women  had  been  wrapped 
up  in  something  that  we're  just  beginning  to  peek 
out  of?  Guess  what  I  thought.  Yes,  that  was  it. 
When  I  spoke  out  my  first  thought,  I  says : 

"  Oh,  ladles,  I  can't  go.     I  ain't  got  a  rag  fit  to 


wear." 


It  took  quite  a  while  to  persuade  me.  All  the 
party  dress  I  had  was  out  of  the  spare-room  cur- 
tains, and  I  didn't  have  a  wrap  at  all  —  I'm  just 
one  of  them  jacket  women.  And  finally  I  says  to 
them:  "  You  look  here.  Suppose  I  write  a  note  to 
the  president  of  the  whole  thing,  and  tell  her  just 
what  clothes  I  have  got,  and  ask  her  if  anybody'd 
best  go,  looking  like  me." 

And  that  was  what  I  did  do.  I  kept  a  copy  of 
the  letter  I  wrote  her.  I  says : 

"Dear  President: 

"  Us  ladies  have  heard  about  the  meeting  set  for  next 
week,  and  we  thought  we'd  send  somebody  up  from  our 
Friendship  Village  Married  Ladies  Cemetery  Improvement 
Sodality.  And  we  thought  we'd  send  me.  But  I  wouldn't 
want  to  come  and  have  everybody  ashamed  of  me.  I've 
only  got  my  two  years  suit,  and  a  couple  of  waists  and  one 
thin  dress  —  and  they're  all  just  every  day  —  or  not  so  much 


300        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

so.     I'm  asking  you,  like  I  feel  I  can  ask  a  woman,  president 
or  not.     Would  you  come  at  all,  like  that,  if  you  was  me. 
"  Respectfully, 

"  CALLIOPE  MARSH." 

I  kept  her  answer  too,  and  this  is  what  she  said : 

" Dear  Miss  Marsh: 

"  Just  as  I  have  told  my  other  friends,  let  me  tell  you : 
By  all  means  we  want  you  to  come.  Do  not  disappoint  us. 
But  I  believe  that  your  club  is  not  entitled  to  a  delegate. 
So  I  am  sending  you  this  card.  Will  you  attend  the  meet- 
ing, and  the  reception  as  my  guest  ?  " 

And  then  her  name.  Sometimes,  when  I  get  dis- 
couraged about  us,  I  take  out  that  letter,  and  read 
it  through. 

I  remember  when  the  train  left  that  morning,  how 
I  looked  back  on  the  village,  sitting  there  in  its  big 
arm  chair  of  hills,  with  green  cushions  of  woods 
dropped  around,  and  wreaths  of  smoke  curling  up 
from  contented  chimneys.  And  over  on  the  South 
slope  our  big  new  brick  county  house,  with  thick  lips 
and  lots  of  arched  eye-brows,  the  house  that  us  ladies 
was  getting  seats  to  put  in  the  yard  of. 

"  Say  what  who  will,"  thinks  I,  "  I  love  that  little 
town.  And  I  guess  it's  just  about  as  good  as  any  of 
us  could  expect." 

I  got  to  the  City  just  before  the  Convention's 
evening  meeting.  I  brushed  my  hair  up,  and  put 
on  my  cameo  pin,  and  hurried  right  over  to  the 


"  FOLKS  "  301 

hall.  And  when  I  showed  them  my  card,  where  do 
you  guess  they  took  me?  Up  to  one  of  the  rows 
on  the  stage.  Me,  that  had  never  faced  an  audience 
except  with  my  back  to  them  —  as  organist  in  our 
church.  (That  sounds  so  grand  that  I'd  ought  to 
explain  that  I  can't  play  anything  except  what's 
wrote  natural.  So  I'm  just  organist  to  morning 
service,  when  I  can  pick  out  my  own  hymns,  and 
not  for  prayer  meeting  when  anybody  is  likely  to 
pipe  up  and  give  out  a  song  just  black  with  sharps 
and  flats.)  There  were  a  hundred  or  more  on  the 
stage,  and  there  were  flowers  and  palms  and  lights 
and  colors.  I  sat  there  looking  at  the  pattern  of 
the  boards  of  the  stage,  and  just  about  half  sensing 
what  was  going  on  at  first.  Then  I  got  my  eyes  up 
a  little  ways  to  some  pots  of  blue  hydrangeas  on  the 
edge  of  the  stage.  I  had  a  blue  hydrangea  in  my 
yard  home,  so  they  kind  of  gave  me  courage.  Then 
my  eye  slipped  over  the  foot-lights,  to  the  first  rows, 
to  the  back  rows,  to  the  boxes,  to  the  galleries  — 
over  the  length  and  breadth  of  that  world  of  folks 
—  thousands  of  them  —  as  many  as  five  times  them 
in  my  whole  village.  And  they  were  gathered  in  a 
room  the  size  and  the  shape  and  —  almost  the 
height  of  a  village  green. 

The  woman  that  was  going  to  talk  that  night  I'd 
never  even  heard  of.  She  was  a  woman  that  you 
wouldn't  think  of  just  as  a  woman  or  a  wife  or  a 
mother  or  a  teacher  same  as  some.  No,  you 


302         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

thought  of  her  first  of  all  as  folks.  And  she  had 
eyes  like  the  living  room,  with  all  the  curtains  up. 
She'd  been  talking  a  little  bit  before  I  could  get  my 
mind  off  the  folks  and  on  to  her.  But  all  of  a  sud- 
den something  she  was  saying  rang  out  just  like 
she  had  turned  and  said  it  to  me.  I  cut  it  out  of  the 
paper  afterwards  —  this  is  it,  word  for  word: 

"  You  who  believe  yourselves  to  be  interested  in 
social  work,  ask  yourselves  what  it  is  that  you  are 
interested  in  really.  I  will  tell  you.  Well,  whether 
you  know  it  or  not,  fundamentally  what  you  care 
about  is  PEOPLE.  Let  us  say  it  in  a  better  way. 
It  is  FOLKS." 

I  never  took  my  eyes  off  her  face  after  that.  For 
"  folks  "  is  a  word  I  know.  Better  than  any  other 
word  in  the  language,  I  know  that  word  "  folks." 

She  said:  "Well,  let  us  see  what,  in  clubs,  our 
social  work  has  been:  At  first,  Clean-up  days, 
Planting,  Children's  Gardens,  School  Gardens,  Bill 
Boards,  the  Smoke  Nuisance.  That  is  fine,  all  of 
it.  These  are  what  we  must  do  to  make  our  towns 
fit  to  live  in. 

"  Then  more  and  more  came  the  need  to  get 
nearer  to  folks  —  and  yet  nearer.  And  then  what 
did  we  have?  Fly  campaigns,  Garbage  Disposal, 
Milk  and  Food  Inspection,  Playgrounds,  Vocational 
Guidance,  Civic  and  Moral  training  in  the  schools, 
Sex  Hygiene,  Municipal  Recreation,  Housing.  All 
this  has  brought  us  closer  and  closer  to  folks  —  not 


"  FOLKS  "  303 

only  to  their  needs  but  to  what  they  have  to  give. 
That  is  fine  —  all  of  it.  That  is  what  we  have  to 
do. 

"  But  who  is  it  that  has  been  doing  it?  Those 
of  us  to  whom  life  has  been  a  little  kind.  Those  of 
us  on  whom  the  anguish  and  the  toil  of  life  do  not 
f  alb  the  most  heavily.  We  are  free  to  do  these 
things.  Clean,  cleanly  clothed,  having  won  —  or 
been  given  —  a  little  leisure,  we  are  free  to  meet 
together  and  to  turn  our  thought  to  the  appearance 
of  our  cities  —  and  to  the  other  things.  That  is  a 
great  step.  We  have  come  very  far,  my  friends. 

"  But  is  it  far  enough? 

"  Here  in  this  hall  with  us  to-night  there  are 
others  besides  ourselves.  Each  of  us  from  near 
towns  and  far  cities  comes  shepherding  a  cloud  of 
witnesses.  Who  are  these?  Say  those  others,  clean 
and  leisured,  who  live  in  your  town,  and  yours. 
Say  the  school  children,  that  vast,  ambiguous  host, 
from  your  town  and  yours  and  yours.  Say  the  la- 
boring children  —  five  hundred  thousand  of  them 
in  the  states  which  you  in  this  room  represent  —  my 
friends,  the  laboring  children.  Say,  the  seven  mil- 
lion and  more  women  workers  in  your  states  and 
mine.  Say  the  men, —  the  wage  earners, —  toilers 
with  the  hands,  multitudes,  multitudes,  who  on  the 
earth  and  beneath  it,  in  your  town  and  yours  and 
yours,  are  at  labor  now,  that  we  may  be  here  — 
clean  and  at  leisure.  I  tell  you  they  are  all  here, 


304         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

sitting  with  us,  shadowy.  And  the  immediate  con- 
cerns of  these  are  the  immediate  concerns  of  us. 
And  social  work  is  the  development  of  the  chance 
for  all  of  us  to  participate  more  abundantly  in  our 
common  need  to  live. 

"  As  fast  as  in  you  lies,  let  your  civic  societies  look 
farther  than  .conserving  or  planting  or  beautifying, 
or  even  cleaning.  Give  these  things  to  committees 
—  important  committees.  And  turn  you  to  the 
fundamentals.  Turn  to  the  industries  and  to  the 
government  and  to  the  schools  of  your  towns  and 
there  work,  for  there  lie  the  hidings  of  your  power. 
Here  are  the  great  tasks  of  the  time:  The  secur- 
ing of  economic  justice  for  labor,  the  liberation  of 
women,  and  the  great  deliverances:  From  war, 
from  race  prejudice,  from  prostitution,  from  alco- 
hol, and  at  last  from  poverty. 

"  These  are  the  things  we  have  to  do.  Not  they. 
We.  You  and  I.  These  are  your  tasks  and  mine 
and  the  tasks  of  those  who  have  not  our  cleanliness 
nor  our  leisure,  but  who  will  help  as  fast  as  ever 
we  learn  how  to  share  that  help  —  as  fast  as  ever 
we  all  learn  how  to  work  as  one.  .  .  .  Oh,  my 
friends,  we  must  dream  far.  We  must  dream  the 
farthest  that  folks  can  go.  For  life  is  something 
other  than  that  which  we  believe  it  to  be." 

When  she'd  got  through,  right  in  the  middle  of 
the  power  and  the  glory  that  came  in  my  head,  some- 
thing else  flew  up  and  it  was : 


"  FOLKS  "  305 

1.  See  about  having  seats  put  in  the  County  House 
Yard. 

2.  See  about  getting  the  blankets  in  the  Calaboose 
washed  oftener. 

3.  See  about  —  and  all  the  rest  of  them. 

And  instead,  this  was  what  we  were  for,  till  all  of 
us  have  earned  the  right  to  something  better.  This 
was  what  we  could  help  to  do.  It  was  like  the  sky 
had  turned  into  a  skylight,  and  let  me  look  up 
through.  .  .  . 

My  seat  was  on  the  side  corner  of  the  platform, 
nearest  to  her.  She  had  spoken  last,  and  every- 
body was  rustling  to  go.  I  didn't  wait  a  minute.  I 
went  down  close  beside  the  footlights  and  the  blue 
hydrangeas,  and  held  out  my  letter.  And  I  says: 

"  Oh !  Come  to  Friendship  Village.  You  must 
come.  We  were  going  to  get  the  blankets  in  the 
calaboose  washed  oftener  —  and  —  we  —  oh,  you 
come,  and  make  us  see  that  life  is  the  kind  of  thing 
you  say  it  is,  and  show  us  that  we  belong!  " 

She  took  the  letter  that  Mis'  Fire  Chief  Merri- 
man  had  composed  for  me,  and  right  while  forty 
folks  were  waiting  for  her,  she  stood  and  read  it. 
She  had  a  wonderful  kind  of  tender  smile,  and  she 
smiled  with  that.  And  then  all  she  says  to  me  was 
all  I  wanted : 

"  I'll  come.     When  do  you  want  me?  " 

Never,  not  if  I  live  till  after  my  dying  day,  will  I 
forget  the  day  that  I  got  back  to  Friendship  Village. 


306        PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

When  it  came  in  sight  through  the  car  window,  I  saw 
it  —  not  sitting  down  on  its  green  cushions  now,  but 
standing  tip-toe  on  its  heaven-kissing  hills  —  wait- 
ing to  see  what  we  could  do  to  it.  When  you  come 
home  from  a  big  convention  like  that,  if  you  don't 
step  your  foot  on  your  own  depot  platform  with  a 
new  sense  of  consecration  to  your  town,  and  to  all 
living  things,  then  you  didn't  deserve  your  badge, 
nor  your  seat,  nor  your  privilege.  And  as  I  rode 
into  the  town,  thinking  this,  and  thinking  more  than 
I  had  words  to  think  with,  I  wanted  to  chant  a  chant, 
like  Deborah  (but  pronounced  Deborah  when  it's  a 
relative).  And  I  wanted  to  say: 

"  Oh,  Lord.  Here  we  live  in  a  town  five  thou- 
sand strong,  and  we  been  acting  like  we  were  five 
thousand  weak  —  and  we  never  knew  it. 

"  And  because  we  had  learned  to  sweep  up  a  few 
feet  beyond  our  own  door-yard,  and  had  found  out 
the  names  of  a  few  things  we  had  never  heard  of 
before,  we  thought  we  were  civic.  We  even  thought 
we  were  social. 

"  Civic.  Social.  We  thought  these  were  new 
names  for  new  things.  And  here  they  are  only 
bringing  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  that  we've  known 
about  all  along. 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  going  to  be  brought  in  by  women 
working  along  alone.  Nor  by  men  working  along 
alone.  It's  going  to  come  in  by  whole  towns  rising 


"  FOLKS  "  307 

up  together  men  and  women,  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
and  nobody  left  out,  organized  and  conscious  and 
working  like  one  folk.  Like  one  folk." 

Mis'  Amanda  Toplady  and  Mis'  Holcomb-that- 
was-Mame-Bliss  were  at  the  depot  to  meet  me.  I 
remember  how  they  looked,  coming  down  the  plat- 
form, with  an  orange  and  lemon  and  water-melon 
sunset  idling  down  the  sky. 

And  then  Mis'  Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss 
says  to  me,  with  her  eye-brows  all  pleased  and 
happy: 

"  Oh,  Calliope,  we've  got  the  new  seats  for  the 
County  House  Yard.  They're  iron,  painted  green, 
with  a  leaf  design  on  the  back." 

"  And,"  chimes  in  the  other  one,  "  we've  got 
them  to  say  they'll  wash  the  blankets  in  the  cala- 
boose every  quarter." 

I  wanted  to  begin  right  then.  But  I  didn't.  I 
just  walked  down  the  street  with  them,  a-carrying 
my  bag  and  my  umbrella,  and  when  one  of  them 
says,  "  Well,  I'm  sure  your  dress  don't  look  so  very 
much  wore  after  all,  Calliope,"  I  answered  back, 
casual  enough,  just  as  if  I  was  thinking  about  what 
she  said:  "Well,  I  give  you  my  word,  I  haven't 
once  thought  about  myself  in  con-nection  with  that 
dress." 

Together  we  went  down  Daphne  Street  in  the  aft- 
ernoon sun.  And  they  didn't  know,  nor  Friendship 


3o8         PEACE  IN  FRIENDSHIP  VILLAGE 

Village  didn't  know,  that  walking  right  along  with 
us  three  was  the  tramp  and  the  tramp  of  the  feet 
of  a  great  convention  that  had  come  home  with  me, 
right  there  to  our  village.  Oh,  I  mean  the  tramp 
and  the  tramp  of  the  feet  of  the  folks  in  the  whole 
world. 


THE  END 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OP   AMERICA 


FORED  AT 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


50m-l,'69(J5643s8)2373 — 3A,1 


